Convenient Gardening with MiracleGro Gro-ables!

Yeah. I know. Honestly, you'd think I'd be all over this. Making it easier for people to grow food? Encouraging gardening? What's bad about that? Two words: Miracle-Gro.

(Wait. Does hyphenating a word make it one word not two? I digress.)

Gro-ables seed pods. "Plant, Water, Enjoy!" Guaranteed to grow! Yeah that's what you get with GMOs, isn't it? Nature-proof plants. No weeding? Is that because of the Roundup you genetically engineered in?

So here's my problem with this convenient gardening: Follow the bouncing ball and it leads you right to Monsanto's doorstep. Didn't know Miracle-Gro was owned by Monsanto? Easy.... "The global family of Scotts Miracle-Gro brands provides a wide-range of consumer lawn care and gardening solutions. You can learn more about our trusted industry-leading brands by visiting the Web sites below."

Global Consumer - U.S.: Scotts, Miracle-Gro, Ortho, Roundup, Wild Bird Food, Osmocote, Scotts LawnService

The dead give-away there is Roundup. We know that for sure is Monsanto. So there ya go. See:

©2002-2013, Monsanto Company, Worldwide Rights Reserved (Roundup Product Images). Roundup, Roundup and Design, Roundup Extended Control and X Design, FastAct and Pump 'N Go are trademarks of Monsanto Technology LLC.

Oh, Silly. It's just Agent Orange. 

Are these heirloom seeds? Um, doubtful. Are they genetically modified? Possible. Nothing saying they aren't on the site. Are they propagating Monsanto seeds about the neighborhoods? Definitely. DO NOT be fooled by these little friendly innocent oh-so-easy little convenient kits! I feel like we are losing! Please, pass this information around. We have to start pushing back, or we are going to be lost. 

Looking at their site, their FAQs, it actually scares me how much, how many words and terms are trademarked. 

Don't Drink Oil

It's a cute video in support of "plastic" made from corn... check it out in preparation to read, if you will. It's short!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FzYcW3Fdhs&feature=youtu.be

Red Solo Evil

I have a problem with this, though. Oh, don't get me STARTED on Red Solo Cups and the accompanying stupid song that was written in praise of drunkards and plastic... but let's talk about cups made from corn. Or sugar. Or potato starch. Forks and spoons and plates and even these clear cups for our beverages. These things are great, right?

Well....

Compostables are coming along, but it's not quite right yet. I feel like unless we can replace every single piece of plastic picnic-ware etc with compostables all at once, like, tomorrow, then we have problems. One, these things require high-heat composting. You can't just toss these things in your bin out back. Not all communities have that. YET. These thing will come. But as of now...

How many people do you know that pay attention to where they are throwing what out? Are you at a gathering where you can announce, hey, these cups have to go into a special bin! Hell, you can't even get people to recycle regularly most times! I can't count the times I go down to our trash bin which has the blue recycle bins (3 of them) RIGHT next to it and there is recycle stuff in the trash. With that, we expect people to know they need to put this here special cup in a special place? See, just one of these will ruin a regular batch of recycling. And don't think recycling centers have the manpower or ability to go through every single piece of trash that comes their way. (Americans don't want THAT kind of job. Ew. Yucky. We're above that kind of labor, dontcha know. We need jobs, but not THOSE jobs. Eww.) So, these things are actually dangerous to the system as we have it now. It's not good. I sure don't trust people's knowledge enough. Do you?

Also, making these things out of, say, corn, encourages mono-cropping and GMOs. This is not good. Is it worse than the oil it takes to make plastic?? I don't know. No? No. I don't know. It's a BIG topic. Yes, I think they are better, but no, I am not sure we are ready for them. We have to get there. We aren't there yet.  And I know mono-cropping and Monsanto are right up there with Big Oil. This is not simple. My brain is in a twist just typing this.

You know what I do know? The best way would be to not use any of these things at all anymore. just stop. We lived without them quite well and easily before. Did we not have parties and picnics before Red Solo? Did we suffer? Oh, but Good, glass breaks. Kids can't use glass. It's too dangerous. We HAVE to use plastic! You don't want our kids to get hurt, do you? What kind of person are you?? We can't live without plastic anymore!

Sigh.

Never mind. We're already lost. Forget I said anything.

Soy, Everywhere

I had a great guest on my radio show the other week that opened my eyes just a little wider. I feel pretty knowledgeable about *stuff* in general, but every now and then I learn something, too.

Did you know some people are allergic to soy? Did you know it's a big problem? Did you know soy is in the majority of what you eat, drink, even touch???

Take a listen to the show here: http://www.newdissidentradio.com/archives/ggw/2012/april/ggw-040712.mp3  with my guest Kathy Kotteras. She was full of great, if not kind of horrifying, information.

Soy allergies and intolerance can cause eczema, hives, asthma, allergic rhinitis, anaphylactic shock, and digestive problems. Soy is a top 8 allergen.

This is all information before you even THINK about the fact that soy is huge in the GMOs. Soy, soy everywhere. It's in more things that you would even begin to think. Even the meat YOU eat, eats soy.

It gets me to thinking... is something like soy allergy on the rise because we ARE genetically modifying it? My personal resounding answer is a "Hell, yes." Would we be OK with soy if we weren't messing around with Mother Nature's recipe? I suspect this is the case. Mess with Nature and she gets pissy. And I don't blame her.

Whatever the case, I suspect we are only seeing the very beginning of a big big problem. Tune in to the show when you have the time, and learn something startling. Oh, and SPREAD THE WORD!!!

Torn Again.

So, there is this snack food. It's good, healthy, raw, gluten-free, non-GMO... all kinds of good stuff. Just freeze-dried fruit. A really good snack food all around when you need/want it. Better than chips, or anything fried or overly-processed or filled with soy product. So why am I torn?

Crunchies, Nature's Ultimate Snack Food, are made in the USA and are by all accounts very good for you. Great on the go. Good for kids, good to mix into almost anything, up to 9 servings of your daily fruits and veggies. So what's my beef with them? (little pun there)

Well, let's move past the packaging, which of course rankles. That should be obvious to anyone who has been here before! No, instead, it is a little factoid my husband pointed out on the package: "Did you know: It takes 8-10 lbs of fresh fruit or vegetables to make 1 lb of Crunchies?" This is a selling point, apparently, because it is right on the package.

.......umm.....

Do you hear the crickets? It's what I hear.

Does that seem... confusing? Can't more people be fed with the 8-10 pounds? I'm confused. Someone please explain this to me. OK, yeah, the method of freeze-drying makes this snack available to more people than that 8-10 pounds of fruit or vegetables. The nutrition is still there. You can still eat these off-season, or they can get to a place that fresh fruit can't reach. OK. That must be valid. I still can't wrap my head around it. Maybe since you find these mostly in the stores I don't like as much, and that a package can cost, say, $5, that you can forgive my doubting that this is an entirely great thing. It's not like these are going to be shipped to poverty-stricken areas or starving kids. These are simply a "convenient" (says so right on the package, you know how I feel about THAT word), froofy, over-priced hip thing. Sure, you can get your kids to eat their fruit this way. Sure, you can be all cool with your bag of oh-so-cool edamame and rice. You're so cool. You have stuff from Whole Foods. You must have disposable income and be someone I want to hang with. That's what these packages say. Mmm hmmm.

So, yeah. I'm not sold. I had the sample pack, I tried them, they didn't suck, but I know I don't need them in my life. Save yer packaging an' yer over-priced hip snack food. I'll eat and actual pear. And if it is not in season, I won't eat it. And if I have my own pears, I'll can or dehydrate them myself and enjoy them another time.