One year, long ago, I had no energy. I’d walk the dog in mid afternoon and return
so tired I’d have to take a nap. After
supper with my family, I’d go to my evening shift at work and drag my knuckles
around all night.
At work we had a clerk, a
driver that would take me to the different spots at the work site and wait for
me while I performed a certain task and then I’d get back in the van and he’d
drive me to the next place. But he was rather
tuned out and was rarely parked close to me when I’d completed my chore, so I
wound up having to walk a small distance each time to get back in the van. I was miffed and pooped.
In my early adult
years, I enjoyed donating blood to the Red Cross. However, my hemoglobin was always a bit on
the low side and to test that they’d have to get a second drop of blood to
slide down the little cylinder full of transparent blue liquid and the drop
would very slowly sink to the bottom or even stall half way down. Not heavy
enough – not enough iron? Eventually I
decided to keep my light hemoglobin for myself.
With that in mind I thought my
fatigue was due to my low blood count.
So I religiously ate Raisin Bran (a good source of iron in the raisins)
and I also ate liver. But I was still
pooped. This went on for months.
Finally,
one day I skipped the Raisin Bran. That
evening I had more energy! That was
strange. I bought Organic raisins and
added them to just regular Bran Flakes.
All was well! It turned out the
pesticide residues from the raisins were killing my energy (and the California
farm workers). It was about that time
that we Progressed over to Organic peanut butter as well – peanuts were another
one of the ‘dirtier’ foods.
A couple of years later I was low energy
again. For several months. This time it was the decaffeinated tea I was
drinking a lot of. I guess the dry-cleaning
fluid they were using to wash the caffeine from the tea didn’t all return to
the vat.
Several years ago, I had an
issue with a strange pain in my bladder. It was gone in mid-summer but came back in the
winter. This went on for a couple of
years. I was almost ready to see my doctor when we
figured out what it was. In the winter
we had access to cheap bell peppers grown in our local British Columbia hot
houses. In the summer we ate our own
home-grown peppers. No bladder pains
then. But if I ate store-bought ones in
raw strips or in salads, the ache came. (cooked peppers seemed to be okay). Probably pesticide residues in the
peppers. All perfectly safe, nothing to
see here, move along. The pain has never
returned since I changed to only Organic peppers
The food industry has great
license to get away with all kinds of things.
Nutritional science has been a fraud for many decades. Any group that can endorse ‘Enriched White
Bread’ as healthy is totally corrupt. (it should have warning labels) When
we lived up in the Frigid North, the local radio station instructed the locals
not to put out enriched white (or brown) bread crumbs for the birds. The birds would fill up on those empty
calories, sit on the wire over night and freeze to death. But no nutritionist desiring to keep his job can
ever mention that enriched elephant in the room.
In grade 12 I took an easy,
beginners guys foods class and the dear old teacher loved putting wheat germ
into most everything we baked. This was
the part of the grain that was refined out of the flours and was perishable and
so she always kept it in the fridge. For
many years my Lovely Wife baked our own bread using Stone Ground Whole Wheat
Flour. It was sure good for our kids and
us.
Several years ago, a new local company named Silver Hills https://silverhillsbakery.ca/ , based out of
Abbotsford, started selling Sprouted Grain breads. These were made with totally non refined
grains. In fact, the grain had to be
alive – it had to sprout before it was made into bread. I was so thrilled to finally get store bought
bread that was more than okay for you.
It was great for you. The
majority of their ingredients are Organic and they supply much of North America.
Why not sprouted Regular wheat
instead of Organic? About 6 years ago
I’d read about some wheat farmers spraying glyphosate on their almost ripe
grain. This is the main ingredient in
Roundup, the herbicide that kills most everything except GMO’d corn and other engineered
things. The glyphosate was classed as a ‘desiccant’
and deemed perfectly safe so the farmers were encouraged by our friends in Monsteranto
to apply it to their wheat fields 10 days before harvest to ‘stop’ it, i.e. Kill it. This facilitated the smaller,
later, immature grain heads to dry and mature along with the main crop. This couldn’t be happening!
My Lovely Wife has four sisters and one of
them married a Dirt Farmer way up in Fort St. John. He was currently the crop insurance inspector
and he would know if this activity was happening. It is.
It turns out many chemicals are deemed
safe if they pass through your system fast enough to avoid absorption. As in “Just passing through. Nothing to see
here. Move along.” We now aim at only Organic
flours and breads.
Recently I read of a strange commonality with brain
disorder patients – was it Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s? – that many had
experienced chronic constipation before getting their illness. Hmmm.
Just a few years ago we were eating
some summer store-bought potatoes. We
love them baked in our toaster oven.
These had skins that tasted bitter.
Later while driving past a Fraser Valley potato field in the Matsqui
Flats, I noticed how the whole field’s tops had all died at the same time. My spuds succumb unevenly so this was rather
strange. I talked to another
brother-in-law (four sisters, remember) who lives nearby and he said they
‘knock down’ the tops with glyphosate for an easier harvest. Ahhh! Now
we’ve progressed to buying only Organic potatoes when we run out of our own.
That
same brother-in-law in Matsqui lives next to one of the many blueberry fields
in the area. He is astounded by all the
sprays the neighbour puts on his berries.
In the Fraser Valley it’s rare to see a tractor pulling a cultivator, --
they’re almost always attached to sprayers.
One blueberry grower who also had a bit of U-pick on the side stated
that they use no sprays,… except for a mildewcide --- that one is needed
because the processor won’t accept anything without it.
While walking through our daughter’s
local supermarket in southern California, I noticed lovely blueberries in their
little clear boxes with stickers on them stating they were from Pitt Meadows,
B.C. --- just down the road from me. At first,
I was so proud. They were in pristine
condition and had travelled 1300 miles.
It must be the refrigeration?
Nawh. We’ve now progressed to
only picking Organic blueberries. (I can’t grow my own)
Recently my Lovely
Wife brought home some BC Okanagan Cherries.
They were lovely, large, plump, crisp, and sweet. After downing a bunch I noticed that half of
them had wounds or marks on them and I started to test if any of these had a
bit of a rotten taste. None of them
did. So, I chose the most deformed, deeply
marked ones. Not a single bit of rotten
flavour. Guess what had been sprayed on
those cherries? We now definitely need
to Progress to only Organic cherries.
I used to have the ‘harmless’ vice of
sunflower seeds in the shell. I’d have
some most evenings. And my throat would
get swollen. These seeds never had any
bug bites in them like some sunflower seeds used to. Lack of bug damage was probably not a good
sign. And cracking a
mouthful probably held more than just salt.
Changing over to Organics has
been a Progression for us. I hope I’m
not too late.
These are just some of the negative issues involving my
change over to Organics. (I guess I’m a
glass half empty guy) There are so many positive
issues when consuming and growing Organics that hopefully will be put out in
other posts.
Happy Gardening.
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