Do you use organic meats? I would love to but the closest supplier is 3hrs away, and (this a huge "and") it costs so much more than conventional. I will normally spend a little more for organic stuff (when I can find it), but a 6x price difference is hard to handle. If you do use organic meats have you found it reasonably priced?

And, I'm not sure when or if this will go into affect but Bush did something law-wise (I know nothing about legal stuffs) that made it so that organic ranchers could feed their animals conventional feed and still label it as organic if the price of the organic feed was more than 2x the conventional. Anyone know anything about this and if it will happen?

Hi Cicely:

I do use organic meats and find that they taste better than conventional. It was the only way I could come to terms with eating meat after being a vegetarian for 17 years as well as deal with my chemical sensitivities (no hormones or antibiotics). Conventional practices are too inhumane for me. It's those practices which make the marketing of meat so much cheaper.

One way I reduce the cost is by directly locating an organic farm that sells and delivers in bulk. This way I avoid the middleman costs and they also sell it cheaper in bulk. Of course, this requires a freezer.

Yes, right now animals raised without hormones or steroids can't be labelled organic if they are fed conventional feed. I'm not sure how I feel about this new legislation b/c I don't want to see the "organic" industry corrupted by conventional practice and I also don't want to ingest GMO foods via my meat intake. I guess I don't have to worry b/c I'm in Canada but we seem to follow the US lead in these matters.

Another option is to find a local butcher and ask him if his meats are free range and chemical-free. Basically organic, but fed conventional feed. If you have to choose, choose organic beef over anything else.

Wanda

I try to buy organic meat when I have extra $ for groceries. The price is about 3x conventional meat, but it tastes so much better. 2 HFS in my town sell it. I hope that's not true about the labeling because if the animals eat conventional feed, then I'm sorry, the resulting meat is not organic. Any pesticides or chemicals in the feed will be stored in the fat of the meat and that's not organic. One place I go to knows the suppliers so I know the meat I get from her is for real. It can be cost effective if you really plan out your meals and make things stretch. If I try I can get 3 meals from a 5lb chicken. It's easier in winter. Soups are great!!

Liz

Where are you? Even our HEBs carry at least natural (no hormones or antibiotics) beef and chicken, if not organic - not sure on that one. I get my meat from Whole Foods. Also, meat isn't such a big part of my budget because we have grilled fish 2x per week, tofu at least one time, canned tuna, cheese, eggs (yes, for supper - the frittata recipes with a big salad are a favorite around here), etc. Plus, I've calculated how much protein me and dh REQUIRE and that keeps it real. I'm pinching my pennies, too, so I hear ya!

Our HEB also has ORGANIC mixed field greens in the produce section, not packaged, for $4.99 per pound! Lemme tell ya - that would be a truckload of loose salad greens!!

Jinx

PS Due to GMO fields being in the same area as non-GMO fields, I'm afraid that our whole food supply is doomed.

If you eat a lot of beef and have a freezer, here are some links to organic beef producers in Texas. There are TONS more!

http://www.heall.com/resource/food/texas.htm

We have farmers markets here weekly that feature organic produce - I need to check that out.

Jinx

Hi Jinxy:


Please don't make me crazy thinking about it! There's a really good book I read (surprise, surprise ) called "Eating in the Dark: America's Experiment with GE Food" by Kathleen Hart.

I feel sick when I think about how man is destroying the food chain for the sake of profits and the lengths the US (and Canadian) gov't went to to shove GE foods down the unassuming public's throats. Soon there'll be nothing natural left to eat, just fake food. What'll Dr. S. do then? I guess we'll have to ship our food over from Non-GMO countries or plant our own food grown from stockpiled non-GMO seeds.

ok, ok, I'm slinking off my soapbox....

Wanda

I'm in the great (not) commonwealth of Virginia. There is no Whole Foods Store and no Trader Joes. I should patition (sp?) to get them out here. Walmart is getting better, they have organic milk and yogurt (with sugar, boo.) some organic veggies too. Kroger sometimes has natural angus, but it's too lean and chewy. The best place here is the Heritage Store. It's part of a new-agey complex founded by Edgar Cayce. His A.R.E. Center is here and he still has a pretty good following. It's the best place for supplements too. All the people are very knowledegable. Heritage Store
You can get a catalog from them.

LizzyB

Hey Wandy, remember StarLink corn? I haven't eaten at Taco Bell since !! Lotsa this gmo stuff in sodas, too. Thank goodness that is one addiction I DON't have

Q: What is StarLink and what's all this fuss about?

A: StarLink is a variety of corn that is genetically engineered (GE) to produce a protein toxic to a common pest, the corn borer. It was developed by Aventis, a transnational genetic engineering company based in France, and was sold to farmers in the U.S. StarLink is not authorized for human consumption but illegally entered the food chain and contaminated nearly 300 supermarket and restaurant foods. It was found to have contaminated large quantities of corn for the U.S. and international markets, including Canada, Korea and Japan, in September-October 2000. StarLink has not been approved for any type of use in any country besides the US.


Guess y'all heard recently about our gov shoving off genetically modified food on starving Africans - we figured, hey, beggars CAN't be CHOOSERS, right?

I'm thinking, exactly HOW cold is it in Canada, again? That one little thing keeps me down here...

Jinx

Hi Jinxy:

Most of that book I mentioned above goes into the story of StarLink and the European resistance to accepting GE food. It was amazing no one would believe that the corn was suddenly causing anaphylactic reactions in people until a dentist went to the FDA armed with Starlink corn, an epi-pen and a physician. Then they believed him after using himself as a guinea pig.


Now now Jinxy, they like to think it was a miscommunication with the distributers of StarLink corn. No one knew it was only intended for animal feed.


Hey, the food supply ain't so different up here Jinxy. We'll all have to move to Europe. Sure hope they hang strong on the issue and don't let any government strongarm them.

Love chatting with ya Jinx

Wanda

Too late. The EU government people (whatever you call the group that represents the whole) have agreed to let GMO food in from the US provided it is properly labeled. Our wise and learned government *cough, cough*, is fighting the labeling thing tooth and nail trying to make it so we don't have to label our "frankenfoods" because then they wouldn't sell over there and that wouldn't be fair. Well, DUH!!! Not sure when this is to take effect. I hope they get really mad before then and back out.

This saddens me so to see. In order to grow unadulterated food, we'll have to save the seed now, and start growing it in hothouses where there can be no x-pollination and have another airtight building that we can compost in (like a biosphere), or on the Moon or something. Hey, an organic space station might be nice. Of course then we'd lose bone mass living there. I just can't win this can I?


I've just got this funny picture in my head of our little small town butcher here. I go into his shop, and ask him this, and he just gives me this "you're one crazy little girl" grin, and says, "yep, sure it is." Laughing all the way. I live around a bunch of people who think the fact that I dislike pesticides and round-up and such is pretty doggone hilarious. It would be so nice if this weren't the case .

I'll check out that mail order catalogue too Lizzy, thanks!

Jinx - I'm inside the Pine Cone Curtain of deep east Texas. We have an HEB, but they don't know the word organic. At least not the last time I visited. We have a small health food store, but all they have is a couple of frozen steaks that are 10$ each. The turkey we get is veggie fed, but not nonGMO I'm sure. The closest Whole Foods is just over 3hrs away. We do visit there every few months, so I may check into stocking up next time. I may just have to bite the bullet and shell out a little more $$. I sure would feel better about it. I'd be a Schwarzbein vegetarian if I could stand tofu -- bleck! I do really like fish though, and chicken is pretty good. Thanks for the link. I'll definitely check it out. I need a place that will mail it to me frozen or something. Oh, that reminds me.....

Does anyone know if there is a mail order type place for line-caught salmon and the like? All I can get around here in stores is that farm-raised stuff. Way lower Omega 3.

Oh, and nitrate free bacon that isn't sugar cured. Anyone found that?

I'm so tired of our country bullying people about these sorts of issues! Big business is going to be the downfall of human civilization (new flash, right? ) Guess I can't complain too much since I haven't been as active in these matters I should.

Cicely,
My hubby is from Woodville, ring any bells?

Yeah, I know how small town Texas is. However, you might start bugging your HEB manager. Their stores, all over, are really changing to meet their customers' needs. Just today I bought Nate's Non GMO Vegetarian meatballs at my local HEB. And it is not one of the fancy Central Market Hebs (have you seen those?) - it's definitely a store for the downwardly mobile masses . LOVE IT.

Jinx

PS My HEB also just started carrying Tortilla Factory Tortillas. If something is wrong with them, you can tell me but I'll be humming really loudly with my fingers in my ears.

AND ONE MORE THING...

Non-farm raised salmon: the mercury content is reaching alarming levels (from them eating all the smaller fish in the food chain). Do y'all know if this is true of farm raised? Be careful with fish oil - read that it's best to get the ones filtered and purified so that they have zero cholesterol, since that is where the nastiness is found.

Also, what is with Stonyfield Yogurt using sugar??? Not cool!

Jinx

I'll have to check out my local HEB again, then, Jinxy. Ooh, I love the Central Market ones, but that 3hr drive would do me in twice a week . Every time we go to Dallas I make DH go to Whole Foods with me and let me shop. It's much better too when he reads a book and just lets me shop -- doesn't see the price tags .

Woodville does sound somewhat familiar. Heck, a town could be within 30minutes of where I live, though, and if I haven't been thru it on a regular basis, I would have no clue where it is. I'm terrible with geography, even local geo.

The only reason I'm not highly active in the protesting of the food stuffs and such is because I would stay so high adrenaline all the time and just feel crappy. It makes me so uptight and nervous to be fighting an uphill battle all the time. I know someone has to do it, but there are stronger people than I in this case. It is sickening how we try to bully around the world into doing exactly as we do. We're taking cultures that had very good health records and putting McDonalds' all over their countries. Surprise, surprise that those same countries are having a rise in their degenerative disease stats.

I thought that salmon was low enough on the food chain to not be a problem mercury-wise. Haven't done too much research there so I'm not highly familiar with that. Given what we are having to resort to eating these days, even if we wanna be healthy, and the decreasing ability to find those things due to xpollination and pesticide use, we'll end up eating like the jetsons in the future -- a plate full of pills, which are incomplete at best, to fill in the gaps, and they'll be full of crap too . My serotonin is low if you couldn't tell .

greetings, beiners,
i'm new to the discussion group and am experimenting with a combination of SPII and "the metabolic typing diet". someone mentioned on a different thread a while back about trying all sorts of food plans, only to lose an initial 2-3 pounds, then regaining those pounds and more. THAT"S ME!!
what i've decided to do is try to reset my metabolic set-point by exercising more frequently.
pilates, walking with weights, pilates with weights, basic weight work-outs, etc. i hope that this will be what my body needs to lose the 8 or so desired pounds. i'm also taking CLA.

regarding the mercury in salmon, i'd like to share a little of my own health history. for several years, my TSH has been elevated. i am opposed to toxifying the body with drugs, so i used an edgar cayse product for a while. felt somewhat better, so discontinued its use. last october, my body was screaming to get my attention. when my TSH results were higher than ever, i convinced my MD to prescribe armour thyroid. i know how dr. s. feels about this, but through kinesiology, my body actually showed need for it. by november, i was still feeling pretty badly, so i visited my alternative care practioner. again kinesiology did the trick: i have a mercury toxicity. not from amalgams, but from fish!! we are advised by every conceivable source to eat more fish, but very few of these sources tell us how terribly contaminated most of our fish and seafood are: the larger varieties, especially, like tuna and salmon.
chlorella was my body's choice for detoxification and food supplements (standard process) for balancing the hormones (liver and hypothalamus). so, the moral of the story is this: my primary challenge was that my hypothalamus and my liver were going wacko because of the excess mercury in my body. the thyroid reaction was secondary, making me not really hypothyroid afterall. the progress has been somewhat remarkable, with many of the symptoms totally gone. i would guess by now that i'm a bit less than 50% detoxified.
i hope by sharing this info that someone may benefit from my experience! also, if anyone has any suggestions on how to budge these 8 pounds off of my body, whether it be in actual pounds lost or body fat loss, i'd be more than happy to have you share!

thanks

http://www.mercola.com/forms/salmon.htm

Welcome Curly!

Hey Cicely - re: low serotonin, did I mention that I LOVE SAMe????? Yes, I know I did. Like 5,00 times! Anyway, it is doing fabulous things to my BRAIN Okay. Not that fabulous. I mean, it IS legal! And we're not like those damn legal-reefer smokin' Canadians (too bad - that would have been my next suggestion to raise your serotonin.) NO ONE GET YOUR PANTIES IN A WAD, JUST JOKING.
sort of.

Jinxy