Pimato cheese $3.72 for 5 oz. Walmart

Below are buying options

• Red pepper $1.25 in season Shop and Save
• Red pepper $0 home grown
• Cream cheese $7.38 for 3 lb (5 oz = 15 cents) Costco’s
• Cream cheese $0 End of week yogurt converted to cream cheese

Above are buying options for a favorite snack Pimento cheese.  The basic recipe is Pimento (dried Red pepper) blended into cream cheese.  You can buy it for $3.72 or make it for $1.40 buying product from the store.  We grow our own peppers and make yogurt every week.  We dry the Red peppers, dice them, place them in a dryer and grind the dried pepper into a fine powder to store.  When we want pimento cheese we use our remaining yogurt from the prior week to make lebanon, a middle east, cheese that is very much like cream cheese.  Our cost is almost zero for 5 oz. of Pimento cheese.  Yes we paid for the seeds and did spend some time in the garden and it is true to make yogurt years ago we purchased a yogurt starter and did use milk.

On gallon of milk weighs 8lbs, unlike cheese it converts to 8 lbs of yogurt.  If milk cost $2.40 per gallon we paid 9 cents for our yogurt to make the pimento cheese.  You paid $3.72 for commercially processed pimento cheese that could have chemicals in it and we paid about 10 cents for 5 oz.

Dannon Plain Yogurt $1.19 8 oz.

Below are buying options

• Milk $2.40 per gallon (8 oz 15 cents)
• Regenerative yogurt starter $11.49 (one time)

As mentioned above milk converts to an equal amount of yogurt.  Making plain yogurt costs 15 cents for 8 oz.  We can amortize the regenerative yogurt over one year alone and see the initial cost drop to almost nothing.  We have been regenerating yogurt for years.  One quart, 16 ounces a week at 52 weeks is 832 ounces of yogurt a year suggests a cost of 11 cents for each 8 oz. batch of yogurt dropping to 5.5 cents the second year and 2.75 cents the third year.  Every year the cost drops.

Red Mill’s Natural Corn Meal $7.00 5lb.

Below are buying options

• Corn $0 from the garden
• Corn mill (currently $19 at Amazon.com)

Soak the dried corn and run through the mill for fresh corn meal.  We use 6 bags a year which means the mill is paid for in one years.  Long term no potential chemicals and you have the freshest corn meal.  Made of cast iron the mill can last a life time.  Our cost after amortizing the corn mill drops to near zero. 

With heirloom tomatoes in season costing almost $5 a pound on sale and Red peppers costing $1.25 each how can one not afford to garden.  We recently bought a couple of beautiful locally grown Red tomatoes for $1.00 a pound an amazing price.  They were Red and round, but that is where the stopped being a tomato, there was absolutely no taste which means the soil they were grown it lacked the care to develop proper flavor, acid and most importantly nutrients.  We have Green, Red, Brown and Yellow peppers in our garden.  We have Bell peppers, large peppers, small peppers, hot peppers and all the peppers we need to make our ground pepper spices.  We grow 8 types of garlic at the store you buy 1 type.  We grow 25 different heirloom tomatoes.  How many types can you buy at the store that taste good?

We grow lettuce all year round (zone 5) Missouri.  We grow 8 varieties of potatoes, 3 types of corn, beans, cucumbers, radishes, raspberries, cherries, pears, apples, plums, apricots, grapes, Blackberries, gooseberries, pumpkin, watermelon, cantaloupe, green onions, bulb onions, spinach and on and on.

Yes it takes time to garden, we do it early in the morning and in the evening during summer months.  Bending, twisting, turning, pulling, pushing… exercise many pay to do at the local gym.  A well managed garden with balanced soil and proper care is work, but far less than poorly handled gardens.  Companion planting helps plants grow and keeps pests away.  Using natural fertilizer and knowing when to use it helps the soil develop properly and automatically creates an environment free of most garden pest.  Simple old fashioned tricks keep pests out of your garden, but most people don’t know about them.

We have a small Green house (10 x 12) that we use to start plants and grow plants off season.  This year we raised 50 tomato plants for early planting they compared to tomato plants selling for $11 each.  We grew 32 pepper plants and much more.  Throughout the winter we had fresh cut lettuce and spinach.  We maintained a temperature above 32 degrees which had minimal impact on our utility bill.  Every month the Green house easily covers it operating expenses of a fan or heater and in the first year paid for itself.

We bought heirloom seeds to avoid the issues with hybrids and the lost flavors.  With heirloom seeds you can grow plants from the seeds of prior years fruit.  With hybrids that is often a problem.  Our first year we spent over $250 in seeds and most of those seeds lasted at least 2 years.  Since we collect seeds from our plants we have an unending supply of seeds once again driving the cost out of what we do.  Collecting and drying or freezing seeds is easy and takes no real time.

You can buy organic smoked bacon at Whole Foods for $15 a pound we buy pork belly at $3 a pound and smoke our own.  We purchased a smoker for $200 and covered its cost in 3 months with savings from bacon, ham, chicken and sausages we smoked.

Aluminum free baking powder at the store costs about $4 for a small can, we pay 40 cents for the same product.  You buy yeast, baking powder, chili powder, taco seasoning, salad dressings, catsup, mayonnaise, cheese and dozens of other products for twice to ten times as much as we do.  The products we use are superior products and often much fresher, certainly chemical free.  We ingest no synthetic MSG, no synthetic carrageenan, no aspartame, no sodium benzoate, no high fructose corn syrup and no artificial colorings.  We have minimal risk for E. Coli or Salmonella.

I can hear the argument now, “but you work day and night cooking and gardening.”  Nope, when it is done right it is not as much work as you think.  Sure getting started the first year is a lot of work and learning how to cook by scratch can be stressful since it is a new experience, but once you get into the routine it is simple and most often more efficient than running to the store.  It is likely you may spend almost as much time driving to and from the grocery store, in the grocery store harvesting food from the isles, paying for the food, sacking it, loading it in the car, unloading it at home and shelving it along with getting rid of all those can, bottles and boxes. 

Take a month and see just how much time you spend shopping for groceries and look at how much you haul home.  While you are driving to the store we are already harvesting what we need for the day or week.  By the time you park and get in the store we can hang dried herbs.  While you are in the store we can slice, dice and start the drying process for many fruits and vegetables.  We can make yogurt in the time takes to pay and get change from the cashier.  We make ready to serve and instant puddings from scratch and they take the same time as the ones you buy from the store.  In the time you locate and select your pudding we can make several pre-mixes to store forward.  With dried banana, peach, apricot and other fruits along with vanilla and cocoa powder we can make any pudding you can find in the store.  We pre-grind and store powders from products in season so we have plenty on hand.  We have a rhythm to baking breads, making yogurt, cheese, preserves, mustard, catsup and spices that spread the work out over the year.

Maybe it does take more time than going to the store, but we enjoy the garden and kitchen experimenting and processing our food a lot better than standing in line at the grocery store.  Besides milk, meat, flour, salt and a few other basics we make it from scratch.  Yes that even includes onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, taco seasoning, vinegar and corn starch.  These items are so easy to make it only takes a few minutes yet you pay a hefty sum for a very small amount.  We make vinegar from apple peals and a starter.  Our vinegar costs pennies and is 100% vinegar.  Your cost a couple of dollars and is 96% water.

Eating healthy does not cost more.  You can eat and eat all the decadent foods you like for far less than you imagine.  You just need to use your imagination to understand how it can be done.  In under 2 hours we can make several quarts of peach, plum, strawberry and tomato preserves.  How long does it take to get them from the store?  We can read a book, watch TV, work on a hobby or kick back and relax while waiting for the preserves to boil still in our pajamas if we like.  Can you do that on your trip to the store?  Ours is fresh and has no fructose, no synthetic MSG or other harmful chemicals, is yours?

Gardening can be work and so can cooking, but they can also be fun and even exciting challenges.  How much can you make and how much can you save while creating better, more flavorful chemical free foods.  It just may be worth the effort.  Knowing your food comes from the store is no longer good enough.

I hate to even post the quoted material enclosed below in this article, but it is an example of how far the food industry will go to cover the blatant problems with synthetic MSG (Monosodium Glutamate).  This is material posted on the IInternet by an individual who is being paid to search the internet and post such lies.  Snake Oil Promotions are alive and well.  Synthetic Monosodium Glutimate is worth billions to the food industry.  It cuts the amount of salt, sugar and natural flavors needed in foods.  It includes carcinogenic chemicals and is a free not a bound glutamate as occurs in nature.

Warning: The material below talks about reports funded by the food industry and makes reference to naturally occurring glutamate with out distinguishing the difference between naturally occurring and what they produce “free glutamate.”  These are two distinctly different products. The article reads as if it were official and carried real credibility.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It is real evidence something is being hidden by the food industry, otherwise why all the subterfuge. 

This material was copied from http://vilacplus.eu/2009/02/aspartame-and-msg-monosodium-glutamate-are-not-safe/comment-page-1/#comment-4129.  The site has an open BLOG and promotes Valic Plus products, I cannot vouche for their products, but found the open forum dicussions informational and helpful to the reader.  The comments below appeared in a BLOG discussion about the harmful incidents people were reporting about MSG.

The inserted material in in Orange, my comments are in Black.

“There are many reports on this, I am surprised to read such a difference of statements
Please read all
Thank you

What is monosodium glutamate and where is it found?
Monosodium glutamate is the sodium salt of glutamicacid. Glutamateis a naturally occurring amino acid that is found in nearly all foods, especially high protein foods such as dairy products, meat and fish and in many vegetables. Foods often used for their flavouring properties, such as mushrooms and tomatoes, have high levels of naturally occurring glutamate.
The human body also produces glutamate and it plays an essential role in normal body functioning.”

True, but he is speaking of bound and not free glutamate which is what synthetic MSG is comprised.  Free glutimate is instantly absorb in the body at extremely high rates over loading the system.  Bound glutamate occuring in nature takes time to free and is absorb much, much slower.

“Monosodium glutamate added to foods produces a flavouring function similar to the glutamate that occurs naturally in foods. It acts as a flavour enhancer and adds a fifth taste, called “umami”, which is best described as a savoury, broth-like or meaty taste.”

MSG has absolutely no taste, notice he calls it a flavoring function, what he means is, “we are chemically manipulating your brain to think something tastes good.”  No taste, no taste, no taste.  Nothing in nature overloads the brain like free glutamate, it is dangerous.

“In the European Union, monosodium glutamate is classified as a food additive (E621) and regulations are in place to determine how and when it can be added to foods. Typically, monosodium glutamate is added to savoury prepared and processed foods such as frozen foods, spice mixes, canned and dry soups, salad dressings and meat or fish-based products. In some countries, it is used as a table-top seasoning.”

In America you may recognize Ms. Paul’s MSG.  It has a lot of salt, that is the taste in Ms. Paul’s product.  This paragraph sounds official and sounds like synthetic MSG and free glutamate is condoned in Europe.  the paragraph carefully only states its classification E621and that is it consumed, not that it is officially recognized as safe.  Their is no control over consumption levels since it can be consumed in so many products everyday without your knowledge.  The only regulations are based on percent in a product and how it will be labeled.  It can be label under artificial flavoring if the percent is low enough otherwise there are numerous names approved that it can go under.  It is true it is in most foods from the most complex to the most basic.  It is inundating the commercial food chain and our homes without our permission.

“How is monosodium glutamate made?
In past times, monosodium glutamate was extracted from natural protein-rich foods such as seaweed. Today, this time-consuming practice is no longer used and monosodium glutamate is made from an industrial fermentation process.”

This is kind of accurate and not at the same time.  It is made in a laboratory and yes it is donebecause as mention it is cheaper.  He does not mention the harmful chemicals used to make it.  It is far more than just innocent fermentation.  You might equate this to your teenager buying beer for a door stop.  You just know that isn’t the whole story.

“Is monosodium glutamate linked to adverse reactions?
Despite a small number of person reporting sensitivity to monosodium glutamate, scientific studies have not shown any direct link between monosodium glutamate and adverse reactions. Monosodium glutamate used to be blamed for the “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” because the first anecdotal report was made following consumption of a Chinese meal and monosodium glutamate is widely used in Asian cooking. Symptoms said to be experienced included burning sensations along the back of the neck, chest tightness, nausea and sweating. However, a double-blind controlled challenge of individuals claiming to suffer from the “syndrome” failed to confirm monosodium glutamate as the causative agent. Other studies have found that allergic-type reactions after Asian meals are more often due to other ingredients such as shrimp, peanuts, spices and herbs.”

Scientific studies funded by the food industry have not shown any direct link, if you don’t look for it you won’t find it.  Truly independent research has found issues and have reported it.  doctors that reported such problems are ridiculed to undermine their credibility.  People in China use naturally occurring glutamate from seaweed.  The problem arose with the Chinese Restaurant Syndrome at the same time the synthetic product entered the market. 

Not all restaurants including oriental restaurants used the synthetic and created a disparity in any analysis.  Synthetic MSG was never identified or tested in such a manner.  The study run was not independent and probably used naturally occurring MSG since when questioned answers from these companies often refer to naturally occurring MSG, even though they do not use it.  Numerous reports are showing up about the harmful effects of MSG.  However, the general public lacks unity and massive funds for creating awareness.  We created our WEB site and pro-actively push awareness after curing a 17 year long illness in the family cased by synthetic MSG.  Since we have interacted with numerous other sensitive to the product.

“If you think you are sensitive to monosodium glutamate or any other food ingredient, the best advice is to check with your doctor or with a dietitian.”

We agree if you have issues you should visit your doctor, but in this case he is just plain blowing smoke by suggesting you get tested for monsodium glutamate, why not say synthetic MSG or free glutamate.  He is pointing you in the wrong direction!

“How much sodium is in monosodium glutamate?
Monosodium glutamate contains about one third of the sodium of table salt and is used in smaller amounts. When monosodium glutamate is used in combination with a small amount of table salt, it can help to reduce the total sodium in a recipe by 20 to 40% while maintaining flavour.”

How much salt is in mono sodium glutamate is not the issue.  He has shifted the focus.  Eat sea salt and homemade foods with more flavor and you will naturally cut your salt intake by 50%.  Synthetic MSG does not belong in any one’s diet!  It has no flavor beyond the salt in it.  It is a chemical manipulation of your brain that causes you to like/want more.  You are being chemically manipulated big time.

“Is monosodium glutamate safe for children?
Children metabolise glutamate in the same way that adults do and monosodium glutamate is safe for children. In fact, human breast milk contains 10 times more glutamate than cow’s milk.” 

Here it is, he is discussing naturally occurring glutamate which is bound.  Synthetic Mono sodium Glutamate is a Free glutamate and you can absorb it as fast as you can ingest it over loading the brain and killing brain cells as has been proven in lab mice and lab rates.  If over 70% of all the foods you eat have synthetic MSG and more than likely they do, daily you are consuming way more than you could ever ingest in cows milk.  MSG was taken out of all baby food years ago because of its danger to infants. 

All people metabolise bound glutamate at normal levels and normal rates.  We are not discussing BOND GLUTAMATE, we are discussing FREE GLUTAMATE what manufactures put in our food.  NO it is not safe for children or adults if you are talking about synthetic MSG. If you notice your child getting hyper, angry, belligerent. showing signs of ADD it could well be the synthetic MSG for free glutamate you are feeding them.  You don’t serve junk, food, oh yes you do.  You just don’t realize it.  Most health foods, brand name foods, organic foods contain synthetic MSG, free glutamate and other dangerous chemicals that they add to the food!  Planter’s Nuts, some Campbell’s soups, most over the counter candies, salad dressings, chips, cereals and most processed foods incorporate synthetic MSG.  Look to the dairy section and find ice cream, cream, half & half, cheese, yogurt, sour cream, buttermilk and even powder milk have carrageenan on the label.  Synthetic carrageenan contains synthetic MSG.  Even spices and tomato paste can incorporate synthetic MSG.

“The bottom line
Monosodium glutamate is one of the most extensively studied food ingredients in our food supply. Hundreds of studies and numerous scientific evaluations have concluded that monosodium glutamate provides a safe and useful taste enhancer for foods.”

By now I think you get the idea, this guy thinks he can sell the Brooklyn Bridge to a desert community.  Research funded by the food industry is not credible; synthetic MSG and other harmful chemicals need to be independently reviewed.  Any time they are willing to step up to the plate, I will gladly put together a committee that can oversee the testing, as long as we can monitor the testing and help design the criteria of the test.  In case you are wondering the FDA has nothing to do with the testing unless substantial, organized evidence can be built to support such an expensive effort.  That is why these companies spend so much time squelching any comments.  No concerns by the public, no independent testing and the use of free glutamate and synthethic MSG continues despite its harm.

Fast talk, double talk and miss-direction, it all comes from a part of the food industry that cares more about profits than our health.  I feel sorry for the honest food companies; reputable they put us before illicit profits.  Sure they do need a profit to stay in business, that is why they have to charge a little more because they use good products and don’t cut corners.  I would rather a company raise the price than poison me and my family.  The latest fast one has been the addition of Lectin to Miracle Whip and mayonnaise to make them creamer.  Has anyone complained about these products not being creamy? 

Both now have the more expensive, healthier fats removed and replaced by Lectin.  Gosh, they are so thoughtful, I am glad they are now a cheaper product for the same price so  corporate profits can grow.  What nice people.  If it were good for us why would they not be proud of adding it and tell the truth.  Crisco now sells a healthier product after finding out that hydrogenated fat was bad for us.  That is great, except they only sell the new product in the states that demanded it.  The rest of us evidently are not valued customers I guess.  The states that threatened to stop the old Crisco’s sale had enough evidence from customers to force the issue.  I wonder how long Crisco has know its danger, maybe 30 or 40 years?

We have witnessed many of the symptoms from synthetic MSG in our family and friends.  Each time we uncover the source of someones problems they are so surprised and so relieved.  We don’t have a fix for everything, but if you are being chemically poisoned you can change your health and life by avoiding synthetic MSG, synthetic carrageenan, aspartame, fructose, high fructose corn syrup, sodium nitrates and Benzoate.  You may also have problems with some food colorings and some naturally occurring chemicals in chocolate.  The most common symptoms can include Alzheimer’s, ADD, anxiety, paranoia, massive migraine headaches, vomiting, nausea.

Take action, stop listening to the “BS” thrown-out by the food industry.  Stop bringing home poison to you and your family.  Stop eating out unless you know the food is safe and most often it is not.  Most resturants cannot even tell you whether their food has harmful chemicals.  Start cooking from scratch.  It is important to tell others what you have learned.  The more people that now and react the more we control we have over how money is spent of food.  Bad food products will fall to the side and healthy choices are made.  Cooking dedicant, robust recipes at home we save over 50% of what we use to spend and we are free of a number of serious chemicals in our food.  We eat well and eat everything we use to, we just make it at home.  Read more, study and think about who and where information comes from.  If there is money to be made, there may be alternative motives that are not in your best interest.

Snake Oil, charlaton, swindler, deciet, dishonest, fabractor or lies; what ever you decide to call it is fine, just don;t buy it.  Sadily some corporate gaints placed integrity, credibility, honesty and good faith on the back shelf years ago and live for the almighty dollar.  You are faced with the fact that you and you alone are responsible for the health and welfare of you and your family.  The food industry may resemble the old fashoned carnavel coming to town, filled with the barkers, huckster and carnies of the past.  

We are here to help identify the good, bad and tasty.  We will share what we find with our readers will hope you will do the same.  Know a good food source share it.  Know a bad food source identify it.  Have a good recipe or tip we would like to hear about it.  When identifying a bad food source state the facts, no bashing is necessary.  That they use harmful chemicals says it all.

We have had a number of readers ask

Not being overly sensitive I have very minor headaches that last a few hours and sometimes only feel a slight or unusual pressure, nothing more.  My tolerance for getting a headache from these chemicals is much higher than my wife and I often do not preserve a headache from smaller quantities of such chemicals.  Most people fall into my category and do not even associate the chemicals to the headache.  I only realized the association because of my wife’s more sensitive condition.  The first answer is, if you get very minor headaches as I do they might only last a few hours.  Mind you we rarely if ever get headaches since we learned how to avoid the chemicals.

My wife is very sensitive to the chemicals and from when the symptoms first start to when they end from one chemical poisoning she will have a headache lasting 3 days on average.  Now comes the sticky part.  It seems if the poisoning is very small the headache will not be as prominent and will start easing up on the third day.  However, if the poisoning is a heavy dosage she will have violent, blinding headaches with nausea, vomiting, loss of equilibrium, chills and a number of other discomforts.  This will last for 3 horrendous days and possible four.

Each person is different based on their sensitivity.  And it depends on how much you were poisoned and how often.  As an example:

1. For breakfast you have yogurt with carrageenanand toast with preserves that have synthetic MSG along with a cup of coffee with a creamer that has carrageenanand a sweetener with aspartame.
2. With in one to three hours the headache starts
3. For a mid morning snack you have a bagel with cream cheese, that has carrageenan and the bagel was made with powdered milk which also had carrageenan
4. Starting to feel bad
5. For lunch you have chicken noodle soup with MSG and a grilled cheese sandwich with carrageenan along with a small pudding with carrageenan
6. Feeling really bad
7. You attempt a little chocolate candy to boost your energy, carrageenan and thymanine
8. In bed with the lights out and in real pain
9. You drink some butter milk thinking it will help, carrageenan
10. You through up
11. Not wanting to eat but needing nourishment you try a fruit juice and crackers, synthetic MSG twice

Note:synthetic carrageenan often includes synthetic MSG.  Ultra-pasteurized milk is brought to 190 degrees ferinheight, high enough to free the bound glutamate.  Free/unbound glutamate is part of the problem.  If it is a problem for you, drop ultra-pasteurized milk and all aged cheeses since aging cheese also frees the glutamate.

Just from one day you can see you re-poisoned yourself multiple times, its like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer over and over and over again.  Is there any surprise you have a massive mind numbing headaches?

The next day, trying to get something down you try one or two things, Jell-o, synthetic MSG, Pudding carrageenan, a health bar synthetic MSG, cereal synthetic MSG.  Now you have started the process over and will be down for at least 4 days (3 from the last poisoning).  on the fourth day the headaches are subsiding leaving you fell weak, nausea and a loss of equilibrium, after not eating for a couple of days.  Now you need nourishment and guess what without knowing it you grab another dose of your favorite poison. 

Before we understood what was happening, my wife endured headaches that ran weeks and up to a month.  Extreme pain, hiding in light less rooms where even the slightest sound was painful.  Since I worked full-time she still took care of our kids and the household.  I can’t imagine running a vacuum cleaner, blender, mixer, washing machine or any other devices under such conditions.  Driving during the headaches was usually impossible on bright days.  Sun glasses in-doors and lights out throughout the day with shades drawn were often her technique for surviving while the kids were at school.  Working in the yard, gardening was near impossible, but had to be done.

As you begin to understand; the headache can be non-stop.  For my wife it stopped when she was too exhausted and to sick to eat and when she did eat it is was very basic stuff that just happened to not have any of the problem chemicals.  That lasted for about a week, when she started feeling better and started to eat normally she would get re-poisoned.  That’s right a week without a headache and then another 2 or 3 weeks of pain as we repeated the poisoning cycle.

It sounds all so foolish.  Why were we so blind to what was happening?  First, over a 17 year period we had her to specialists, she had MRIs, upper and lower GIs, you name it she got it.  We changed from one frustrated doctor after another and as they suggested pain pills and possible foods/chemicals to avoid.  Still no solution!  We stopped eating peanuts, we eliminated milk products, we eliminated wheat, sugar and about anything else you can imagine.  Several times we eliminated products with MSG and avoided Asian cuisine, but the headaches persisted.  We read articles about MSG and the false myth that MSG did not cause any problem, “The mytical Asian food syndrome.”  

Since we removed MSG from our diet and the headaches continued, we assumed it was not the problem, besides the food industry had research that showed it was harmless, our problem was elsewhere.  We cut out coffee, chocolate, brown sugar, fructose, cereal, eggs and on and on.  Each time she got headaches we recounted what she had eaten and focused on those things.  Each time she got a headache we considered household cleaners, microwaves, stress, car fumes, natural gas leaks, carbon monoxide poisoning, eye strain and anything else we could grasp.  Early on we even consider issues specific to the female and there was no corollary.

Headaches from chemical poisoning will last as long as you keep poisoning yourself and will return as often as you have the strength to grab that next poison.  One poisoning 3 days, continuous poisoning continuous headaches.  Aspirin, Bufferin, Excedrin and all the rest will not help, they in fact make the next headache worse.

My wife rarely has headaches now.  We have learned how to avoid all of the chemicals except when we find a new food that says organic, natural or healthy and try it.  Nope it was not organic, natural or healthy.  Hidden in the ingredients were one of the poisons.  As long as we stick to what we know she is headache free. 

Here are some big tips to get you started:

1. Synthetic Carrageenan is in most dairy products beyond conventional milk.  Ice cream, cheese, yogurt, butter milk, powdered milk, chocolate milk and cream cheese often have synthetic carrageenan.  Synthetic carrageenan is used to make dairy products creamier and thicker after the makers of the food removed the natural more expensive fats.
2. Sodium Nitrate is in all meats that are beyond the butchered state.  Hot dogs, cold cuts, bacon, salami, pepperoni, sausage often have Sodium Nitrate and possibly synthetic MSG.  Meats that are not fresh are Gray in color.  Meats that are weeks old in packages would be Gray with out Sodium Nitrate.  It makes the meat look fresh and more importantly it kills bacteria from the over-sized meat processing plants.  You don’t need Sodium Nitrate when making these products at home, because your kitchen is cleaner than the processing plants.
3. Synthetic MSG over certain levels in a food must be labeled MSG, however there are multiple names it can go under and still be appropriately labeled.  Under a certain level synthetic MSG can fall under the class Artificial Flavoring (mind you it has not flavor).  Synthetic MSG is not a preservative and it has absolutely no flavor.  It is a mind altering chemical that tricks the brain into thinking something tastes good.  Lowering the salt and sugar in foods saves the makers of processed foods millions of dollars.  They can do this by adding the much cheaper ingredient synthetic MSG.
4. If the ingredient list on the label is long don’t bother reading it, put it back
5. If the ingredient list includes artificial flavors (from the lab) put it back
6. MOST processed foods including some from health food stores have either synthetic MSG, synthetic carrageenan, aspartame or sodium nitrate.  We estimate 70-80 percent of all foods have these chemicals.  There are a few food processors with exceptional standards that refuse to use these chemicals.  We applaud there ingegrity and identify them for you under the articles topic Companies That Care.  If you know of a company worthy, lets us know so that we can share another safe source.
7. Chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder, taco seasoning and tomato puree, very basic foods can have synthetic MSG and often do.
8. Brand names are no solution since many brand name manufactures are the biggest culprits.
9. Some health books say eat from the outside isles of a grocery store to be safe from chemicals.  Meat products and dairy are often on the outside Isle and both have already been identified above as unsafe.

So we have helped eliminate your source of headaches.  All you have to do is stop eating and your headaches will go away.  We can do better than that.  On this WEB site we are sharing how we are able to eat anything and everything.  The secret we have found is where to buy our basics, what we fondly term sundries.  We then do the unthinkable and cook from scratch.  We have researched recipes from the distant past and modified them for the present and we have uncovered recipes for how commercial products are made and create great results at home.  We just leave out the harmful chemicals.

Sure, you are thinking where will I find the time!  Our answer, do you really want those headaches, they will only get worse as you abuse your body?  Yes, it takes time to cook from scratch, but far less than you are imagining.  We openly share how you can make great foods without standing at the butter churn all day.  You want one minute pudding, you can have it.  You want no cook pudding, its yours and it takes no more time then it does to buy and bring home the other junk.  Next time you go to the store calculate the time spent buying those processed foods, include bagging and un-bagging, standing in line, loading in the car and unloading.  Think about the cans and boxes you have to recycle.  By cooking from scratch we have cut our grocery bill in half and reduced our recycle waste by 75%.  We still eat everything we did before minus the chemicals.

Homemade bread, sausage, pepperoni, and salami make your house smell wonderful and they have a great taste.  Curing and smoking meats is easy.  Going to a real meat market with fresh meats is wonderful.  Candy can also be madeand just the way you like it.  Dark chocolate and milk chocolate is all that is offered in most over the counter candies.  There are a wide array of chocolate flavors.  If you have trouble with theobromineyou may have to fore-go the chocolate.  You can find sources for powder milk, powder butter milk and cocoa powder.  You can easily make yogurt, Ice cream, fruit pops, dill pickles, sweet pickles, catsup, barbecue sauce and marshmallows.

Face it going to the store is exhausting and just a little boring.  What if some goods were delivered to your door at half the price?  What if you only bought 30 items at the store instead of 70.  What if you had common ingredients that allowed you to make multiple things.  From milk we make, cheese, yogurt, butter milk and low fat ice cream, I bet you just drink yours.  Butter milk and yogurt take less than an minute to mix up and then are left set at room temperature.  A number of cheeses can be made in 30 seconds to 30 minutes and they are not rocket science.  Ice cream is more about preparation freezing a container and then dumping in a few simple ingredients and watching the paddle spin if you have nothing better to do.  Smoking meats takes several hours, I use that as an excuse to read a good book on the patio while sipping a cold ice tea and snacking on one of my favorite treats.  I could do something else like yard work, but I prefer kicking back and smelling the smokey flavors roll out.  I keep telling my wife they need my personal attention.

People that cook from scratch have techniques to minimize the work and expand the results of their effort.  Here is an example of how you can make several products in a few easy steps.  We make catsup from tomato sauce and a safe tomato paste adding salt, vinegar, sugar and spices to create catsup.  We split some of that off and add an equal amount of horseradish to create a cocktail sauce.  We take another portion of the catsup adding more ingredients to make chili sauce and another portion of the catsup to make several barbecue sauces.  The catsup can also be the base for a salad dressing or tartar sauce.  Making the catsup, barbecue sauce, cocktail sauce and chili sauce all together takes the two of us under one hour with clean up and lasts several months, longer if canned.  We use canned tomato sauce and puree to reduce the cooking time necessary for raw tomatoes.

Yes, you can make all of the spice mixes you find in the store and you can make your own garlic and onion powder along with chili powders.

All the time you spend running back and forth to the store, finding food in the isle, standing in line, checking out, bagging and hauling home is lost time.  All the time you spend in bed with the headaches in non-productive time is lost.  Wouldn’t it be more fun to have a hobby where you create wonderful recipes that everyone loves.  Isn’t that more fun that standing in a grocery line or parking half a block away from the store.  Many foods purchased from the store are boring to make, there is little creativity and the taste is most often lack luster.

True dining is about robust mouth watering tastes and aromas that stimulate cravings.  If the family chips in, it can be fun for the whole family and it will be a lot more fun if they know you will not be sick.

Leave us a message if you have questions, we want to help.  Beyond the WEB site we have spent 3 years developing a series of cook books just for people like us.  The books are about the science of cooking with a wide array of enticing recipes from which you can start.  You can then adapt our lessons to foods special to you.  Our biggest battle has been keeping the cost down, way down so that it is easily affordable.  By breaking the material into smaller books, people can invest in what is important to them.  The first book with over 250 recipes is a survival book, helping people get a sound footing.  It has all the ingredients to eat a wide array of foods including some copycats of your favorite fast foods. 

It includes basic breads and cheeses.  Later we will be offering a book (near completion) on deserts and snacks and another on candies.  Self publishing, we hope to release each book at $15 or less; our publishing and distribution costs.  These are not health food books, these are robust, rich recipes that use what nature has to offer without the chemical additives.  Butter, sugar, gravies, salt, cream and lard are all common sense, natural foods you should be eating.  Yes, lard, it is far better for you than Crisco a hydrogenated fat!  Crisco’s more common product is already banned in a number of states due to know health issues.  For those states they offer a new healthier recipe.  For the rest of us, well you did not complain.

If your headaches are from the chemicals we have discussed above you can eliminate all of the headaches with less effort than you imagine and the mouth watering results are just a bonus.  You may find a family member that enjoys making candy, deserts, baked goods or their special meal.  Work as a team.  Who will be chief (chef de cuisine) and sous chief (under-chef of the kitchen).  Clean up as you cook, use pans wisely; brown vegetables for a soup in the pan that you will make the soup, not in a separate skillet.  Cut vegetables at the start of the week for the week.

Cooking from scratch is not about hard-work, it is about how to work smartly.  The giants of the food industry have been telling us for years how hard it is to cook from scratch.  Just like the leprechauns and fairies of our youth we have bought the story hook, line and sinker; maybe because we want to believe it.  Now, we are growing up and need to put away the fanciful stories of the food industry.  Eggs aren’t bad, butter is not bad, lard is not bad and sugar is not bad when compared to the junk they offer as a solution.  Eating in moderation has always been the key.  Normal helping, no camping on one food type like candy or deserts.  Moderation includes a balanced diet with reasonable portions. 

Interestingly good food made from scratch is more satisfying to the palette and fills us more quickly.  We slow down naturally to savor tastes that have been missing for so long.  Salt intake is down, sugar intake is down as other ingredients ignite additional flavors.  As for lard, we need fat for our joints, and no you do not eat it for every meal.  Without sufficient fat, eating meats that are too lean can actually make you sick as survival specialist will tell you.  A healthy diet is about balance, balance, balance.

So now you have an idea of how long chemically induced headaches last and how you can eliminate them.  It may not cure all of your headaches in life, but it is a huge jump from where you are with chemically induced headaches.  If you have ideas, sources, of food, dangerous ingredients, recipes share them here with us and our readers.

The foods we eat may have more to do with our destiny than just getting us past the current craving.  Here is a look at what is impacting your body, your personal bio-machine that should carry you through life.  The older you get the more you want your body to respond to nutrients and be resiliant bouncing back from viruses.  How you treat it now will have a lot of bearing on how it will respond later in life 5, 10, 20 or 50 years from now.  There are many harmful chemicals in the food chain that can be affecting you now.  Continually ingesting them is only making matters worse for later in life.  Take a second look at what you are eating and may be doing to yourself, with the help of the FDA and the corporate giants of the food chain.  Consider what you are doing to your children, help them defend themselves and lead a healthy long life.  Food is not just something we eat it is a life style and it is part of our destiny.

Fructose stays with you far longer than most of us might imagine and the damage is not so sweet. 

The liver cannot process fructose directly to nutrients for the body; fructose stores directly as fat, we have discussed this before.  Part of your weight loss problem is fructose takes more energy to convert from fat to food than natural nutrients do.  Natural foods convert directly into nutrients our body can use; they are only stored as fat when we overeat.  Any fructose consumed goes directly to fat requiring exercise to become an energy source for the body.  What other food requires such additional effort?

According to a recent study of 46,000 males, if 12% of their calories come from fructose they are twice as likely to get gout.  If a typical male consumes 2,500 calories a day a Big Gulp or a 64oz drink from your favorite fast food will double the 12% indicated.   

Fructose inhibits the body’s ability to process uric acid allowing uric acid (waste) levels to build in joints increasing the risk of Gout.  Gout is not a disease of the rich and it is not a thing of the past.  Feeling brave, Gout is  one of the most painful conditions one will experience.  Impacting major joints, most often the ball joint behind the big toe it incapacitates one for weeks and often months at a time.  The pain is so extreme even a sheet is too much pressure on the inflamed joints.  Severely swollen joints that are inflamed with uric acid build up is bad, but the excess uric acid converts to uric acid crystals which the body has trouble converting back to a fluid the liver can excrete.  Joints become severely distorted and surgery may be needed to remove the enormous lumps of uric acid crystals. 

Ever read the signs, “no shoes, no shirt no service” well shoes of any type not matter how big or soft will be just too painful you are a prisoner held captive by your gout ridden joints.  And your feet are so swollen no decent shoe remotely close to your size will fit.  Not cared for gout can destroy joints, impacting other joints and eventually destroying the kidneys.   You don’t eat that much fructose; better look again at what you are eating, many foods besides sodas have fructose.  Pickles, ice cream, salad dressings, candy, many desert products, catsup, barbecue sauce, Miracle Whip, chewing gum, and breakfast juices, as well as cereals and snack bars usually incorporate fructose.  The list continues though out the food chain, over half of your caloric intake could be fructose. 

Okay you are not male so gout is not an issue.   It is true gout traditionally is predominately a male problem since female hormones protect the fairer gender.  That is until you start going through menopause and harmone levels drop.  Remember those birth control pills that lower your hormones.  Crash dieting and limited intake of fluids to stay all too thin increase the potential for gout as well.  Alcohol dehydrates the body limiting the livers ability to process uric acid.  In combination, any of these can create a situation where females of all ages can land with a serious case of gout when adding the magic ingredient fructose.

Fructose also impedes the hormone Leptin from functioning  normally in the body.  Leptin is a hormone that tells the brain you have eaten enough.  Denied this signal you will over eat time and again.  Not a problem for fast food restaurants, the snack food industry or the food industry at large they like the profit.  But it may be a problem for you as the Leptin signal gets weaker and the pounds rack up. 

Remember the law suit and the Bill Clinton “Cheese Burger” bill to protect fast food restaurants from such ridiculous claims of “you made my child fat.”  “If people can’t stop eating, it is their fault,” was the Fast Food defense.  Well without the harmone Leptin to signal when to stop eating and with fructose going straight to fat it may be a far more valid lawsuit that once imagined.  No wonder the fast food industry pressed for such a law.  Backed by lots of money and plenty of lobbyists storming our representatives to in-act the bill it had to pass.  Our politicians always looking for handouts to fund their campaigns willingly accepted and pushed the law through.  Aren’t you proud of our elected officials always looking out for us.

We often talk about chemicals added through the processing of foods and often do not speak of the chemical loading of foods at their origin.  Here are two examples of just how hard it is to find fresh food and the danger of ignoring the potential risk you face.

Nearly all corn based products sold in the United States are protected from pests by chemicals that include Dixons that were found dangerous as components of Agent Orange over 40 years ago when used in Vietnam.  Many Vietnamese and American military now suffer from a number of health issues due to this Dixon.  It has an eleven year half life which means it persist in the body for at least 11 years and is very insidious in nature.  It modifies the bodies RNA causing the body to develop thicker cell walls. 

Thicker cell walls mean more insulin is needed to transfer blood sucrose across this barrier to starving cells.  Typical Type I diabetics do not produce enough insulin.  Type II diabetics often have a genetic disposition where receptors signaling available blood sucrose in the blood stream are weak and do not react until far higher levels of blood sugar are reached.  This places a greater strain on the heart.  The Dixon initiated Type II Diabetes creates similar health problems with thicker cell walls.  Enough strain on the pancreas and it can fail.  High blood pressure is often a result from diabeties resulting it more danger to extremely fine arteries throughout critical organs. 

Eyes, kidneys, liver and pancreas are things you don’t want to do without.  With diabetes triglycerides sky rocket, requiring every bit of your good cholesterol to combat the problem.  With insufficient good cholesterol there is no controlling the bad cholesterol.  Sure you can take drugs to control these problems except most drugs do not attack the root cause and many drugs are now being pulled of the market as being too dangerous if not down and out deadly.

E-Coli one of those thinks that use to befall us when eating tainted meat, now is in spinach, tomatoes, lettuce and just about anything else that can grow in a field where run off from animal or human feces is possible.  It can’t happen where you shop, not in your food supply, that is what many think.  E-coli is dangerous, very dangerous!  One teenager will never walk again after eating a contaminated hamburger.  A four-year-old girl died after ingesting food tainted with E-coli.  Bloody diarrhea, kidney failure, seizures and violent convulsions are indicative of someone that has ingested E-coli.  If you eat out, if you buy from a super market, do you really know who was handling your food and where it came from.  The FDA does not require testing of meats from processing plants and there is no such testing for vegetables or fruit.

Genetically modified corn through independent studies in Europe now indicate it can cause liver and kidney problems with negative effects on the heart, adrenal glands and spleen.

Monsanto genetically modified the corn with proteins designed to kill pests that eat them (hmmm we eat them) and so that it would better withstand Monsanto’s pesticide Round up.  The farmer uses pesticides like Monsanto’s Round up and Monsanto’s genetically modified corn in the belief they can grow more crops on a single acre.  The truth is the farmer without realizing it hands these profits over to Monsanto to cover the cost of the Round up and genetically modified corn.  The only beneficiary of our poisoning is Monsanto.  By the way Monsanto was sued in the 80’s and lost $800 million dollars for the damages caused to veterans of the Vietnam war due to Agent Orange.  Round up uses the same Dixon and it is sprayed on corn and soy beans at the very least.  Corn and Soy beans are incorporated in almost every processed food.  Kinda makes you hungry for a second helping doesn’t it.  This means all of you well meaning ”health nuts” (no offense) may be ingesting an abundance of Dixons with every servering of soy or tufu.

Maybe Monsanto is not aware of the danger, they were just trying to do the right thing.  According to a report from Mother Earth News Monsanto’s meager research on rats indicated liver and kidney damage!  Well they are just trying to make a living and after all their kids are not eating this stuff.

“According to the nonprofit Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, a project designed to facilitate dialogue about the pros and cons of genetic modification, ‘No single statute and no single federal agency governs the regulation of agricultural biotechnology products.’ And, compared with the battery of tests demanded of chemical pesticides (evaluation of chronic exposure, carcinogenicity, etc.), the testing requirements for genetically altered crops amount to little more than a polite suggestion. 

‘The corporations can pretty much submit whatever they want to the FDA,” says Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist at the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists. “Some have done animal testing, some have not. The United States does not require more than acute toxicity tests where one high dose is fed to the animals once. Even in Europe, where standards are higher, tests of only 90 days are the longest that are required, which is inadequate.’”  (Genetically Modified Corn — Safe or Toxic?, By Amanda Kimble-Evans , http://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/Genetically-Modified-Corn-Safe-Or-Toxic.aspx).

And you thought the FDA was on your side.

It is not enough to buy brand name foods, shop in brightly lit stores, dine at fine restaurants or the brightly colored ones.  Unless you know the source of your food (the real source) and how it has been handled you are at risk of E-Coli.  You can buy local and buy from butchers that work with much smaller custom meat processors.  And you can stop consuming so much fructose.  You can also select corn and beans that are grown locally without dangerous Dixons.  Not doing so, is much like playing Russian roulette with the rest of your life and that of your family.

Our WEB site and others like us are here to point out the dangers, the culprits and how you can do more for yourself and your family.  Fighting the corporate giants is a battle we can win if we all work together.  We offer insight, sources of good food and recipes you will love; all you have to do is read, do a little research and decide for yourself.

Dark, decadent, smooth and creamy, flat almost bitter to sweet and luxuriant, that is chocolate.  Chocolate derived from the Aztec chocolatl (meaning food of the gods).  The cocoa comes from the cocoa tree (Threobroma Cocoa).  The original drink was a mixture of cocoa, cinamin and chili pepper.  A Jusit priest described it as “Loathsome to such as are not acquainted with it, having a scum or froth that is a very unpleasant taste.”  

In the mid sixteenth century chocolate sold in Europe for 50 to 75 pence or about 50 to 75 dollars a pound.  Europeans dropped the chili powder and later added sugar as it entered the market and became more popular sweetening the taste.  Cocoa was a welcome and valuable addition to any ladies dowry.

A more modern version of a rich thick European chocolate drink follows:

• 3.5 ounces cocoa powder
• 3.5 ounces super fine or powdered sugar
• 3.5 ounces butter
• 3.2 ounces white flour
• 1quart Milk
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a medium temperature saucepan, melt butter and sugar allowing the sugar to melt.  Then add the egg following with blend of cocoa and flour.   Stir to blend all the ingredients.  Add the vanilla and then incorporate the milk slowly to the consistency you desire.  Taste testing is not required, but seems appropriate to learn how it feels on the palette at various thicknesses. 

Go Aztec and add a little chili pepper (not chili powder) or a little cinnamon.  In Mexico today you can still get cocoa with chili pepper and cinnamon.  it now also has sugar making it a far pleasanter drink than its ancient cousin.

Chocolate stands on its own, it is a basic ingredient and it coats and covers an array of treats.  What’s not to like about chocolate?  Well sure you have the extra weight, the sticky fingers and the trail left by the toddler… or was that you?  Chocolate, dark more than others has some real benefit, one it being high in antioxidants.  For some there are more serious negative issues with headaches and other less pleasant symptoms. 

Many common chocolate bars have very little chocolate (too expensive), but often have synthetic carrageenan to make them creamer since the more expensive cocoa butter has been removed.  Synthetic carrageenan can be a direct ingredient or is added through a common ingredient found in most powdered milks.  Powdered milk is an essential component of of milk chocolate dating back to the mid 18 hundreds when it was first created.  Synthetic carrageenan is a modern addition that is unnecessary and dangerous compounded by the fact that it often contains synthetic MSG.

In the not so distant past we found a source for pure cocoa that is straight from the bean to you without any additives.  It is a great product, but for some it may not be a solution.  Tyramine a natural component of the cocoa bean can cause elevated blood pressure in some people and result in headaches similar to those with synthetic MSG.  Tyramine is not an additive and is not a problem for most people, but for those finding headaches from cocoa powders without any additives the problem may be chocolate itself.  Chocolate is a natural product, but is comprised of over 380 different chemicals caffine and tyramine being just a few.  We know caffine can cause headaches for some.

Interestingly for those not sensitive to Tyramine, enough dark chocolate can cure some headaches.  This is due to the levels of magnesium found as a natural property of chocolate.  A small drink of epson salts has far more magnesium and will produce the same result if you are not addicted to chocolate.  Do not over do the magnesium.  Tyramine is also found in some soy, and cured or hard cheeses or other aged foods like salami and sausages.

Those typically sensitive to synthetic MSG are also sensitive to carrageenan, sodium nitrate, synthetic MSG, tyramine, aspertame and some food colorings.  All of these will instigate a headache and all the other not so fun symptoms, when blood vessels spasm reducing oxygen flow with elevated blood pressure.  Magnesium  stabilizes blood vessels.  Too low a level of magnesium and blood vessels can react to minor shifts caused by chemicals you ingest.

Our solutionis still to limit processed foods and to cook from scratch.  Sadly, for now, we do not have a solution to those craving chocolate and sensitive to tyramine.  We will keep searching.

In the mean time, consider this interesting thought.  When the body is low on magnesium (serum ionized) blood vessels are less stable allowing them to more easily expand or contract.  Magnesium is an important factor in a balanced body stabling blood vessels   Alcohol, stress and ministration are typical events that lower the body’s magnesium levels which can also leave one susceptible to headaches.  Some people seem to naturally run with lower levels magnesium.  Magnesium and riboflavin/vitamin B2 is often suggested as a dietary recommendation for those suffering with migraines.  Magnesium shots are a medical solution that provide several months relief for some suffers.  Will it work for you?  As with many things the only way you personally will know is to try.  If you look for magnesium to consume only use magnesium that ends in ‘ate”, like magnesium sulfate.  Do not consume magnesium with a name ending in chloride or oxide.

Adults require about 310 to 420mg of magnesium a day.  Foods like wheat germ, beans, soy products, whole grains, seafood, dark green leafy vegetables, bananas (bananas are a migraine trigger in some people) and milk help supply this need, but initially you may need a supplement to get back in balance.  And we have to watch the soy products since some incorporate synthetic carrageenan.  Finally, you can ingest too much magnesium, so getting a blood test to confirm you are low and a recommended dosage might be the best way to go.  Vitamin B2 is recommend, but should not be taken alone, but as a B complex.  Taking one B vitamin can throw off or eliminate others needed for the body.  Twenty-five mg should be all that is needed.  Those tested with 25mg of B2 had as good a result as those ingesting 400mg or more.

Can magnesium and B2 offer relief, you tell us your experience.  Obviously, staying away from harmful chemicals is a positive step even if they do not cause headaches, they cause other problems.  Where the headaches, nausea and other painful symptoms have blown the whistle on real dangers, having a relief from such pain would be great.  Taking magnesium as a headache reliever may work, but bringing magnesium levels up has the potential of avoiding them entirely.  Taken as a nutrient in foods is the best alternative, but it again may not be enough to normalize a body that has gone too low.  One source suggests those with a lower than normal PH (acidic) may also have lower levels of magnesium.  If this is true the corollary would suggest one could perform home tests with inexpensive PH (not garden) meters to determine PH levels.  Some Health food sources indicate a normal PH of 6.8 to 7.2 also suggest a healthy body.

There is plenty here to research and we have just started the investigation of possibilities.  Will it work for one and not another, can it be a solution for everyone, is B2 the answer or is it magnesium…maybe it is a combination of the two or just wishful thinking.  For those that can cure their headaches with a heavy dose of dark chocolate; it does sound sweet. 

The infusion of synthetic MSG

Here are a few examples of just how easy it is to circumvent commercial products.  We have found Onion Powder and Garlic Powders that do not list synthetic MSG or any other chemicals, yet produce the same symptoms as one would experience with the presence of synthetic MSG.  After contacting the company they assured us products that do include MSG are run on separate lines.  We can only assume dust from the MSG powder is in the air and blows from one line to the next contaminating what was intended to be safe.

Garlic powder and onion powder are critical to a number of recipes including spice rubs and mixes like chili powder or taco seasoning.  They are essential ingredients in a number of salad dressings.  The flavor and taste are more intense than diced or sliced onion and the texture is obviously different.  Where it could be great, you may not want onion chunks in  you catsup or barbecue sauce.  The answer make your own.

Slice one large onion into relatively thin slices and quarter the slice for ease of handling.  scatter the onion pieces in a food dryer* (an oven set at 100 to 200 degrees fahrenheit also works but ties up the oven).  Over a 24 to 48 hour period the onion will dry to a brittle state, easy to crumble or snap rather than bend.  Place in a small grinder/coffee mill such as used to grind coffee beans and reduce to onion flakes by pulsing or create onion powder by leaving it run longer.  Larger food processors meant for chopping will simply bounce the material around and not grind it completely.

From one large onion you will acquire a small batch of onion flakes or powder, enough to last several months when you can make a fresh batch.  Why use stale onion powder when fresh has a stronger flavor and aroma.  Use Vidalia onions and you get a delicate sweet onion flake and powder.  Wait a minute, by selecting different onions you can create different onion powder flavors, now that is interesting don’t you think since the stores only offer one onion powder.  As you become more adapt at cooking from scratch you will find a broad array of flavors and choices that are just not on the market.  Why not get a several different onions and dry several at the same time on different dryer shelves, then you can compare the different onion powders for flavor, sweetness and aroma.

Garlic Powder is done much the same way.  One garlic head will produce sufficient garlic powder or flakes for a couple of months.  We break the garlic head apart and remove the paper hull from the garlic and slice it into fairly regular pieces.  Even pieces mean the material dries more evenly.  Smaller pieces means it dries faster.  We actually do the garlic and onion at the same time, just on separate shelves and can also dry some peppers or tomatoes using the same process and separate shelves.  The flavors do not cross.  Wetter items like tomatoes are dried more quickly if thinly sliced.  Cherry tomatoes are good for trying and some are exceptionally sweet when dried.  Items lower on the shelves are closer to the heat and dry more quickly, rearrange shelves and foods to get optimal performance.  Humidity will shift drying times slightly.  There are dozens of different garlic and each offers a different taste, heat and bite.  Look for different garlic types and dry them for additional complexity in your cooking.

Drying peppers of various temperatures and types allow for a range of seasonings, we grow 16 different peppers including Tabasco, Jalapeno, Anaheim, Pablano and others from which we can use fresh or dry to spice up our recipes.  Eating chemical free has nothing to do with boring foods.  Growing foods at home is more than sustainability and independence it is variety, texture and a wider array of flavors and aromas.  Where a lot of Tabasco pepper can be hot, a small portion of the powder can add a very subtle heat.  Jalapenos are a grate addition to a salsa diced fresh, but are a distinctive flavor that can seem out of place in other dishes.  Other peppers with subtle heat can create the impact needed with out the distinct taste of Jalapenos.

A cutting board, a sharp knife, a food dryer and a coffee mill were all we needed to replicate garlic and onion powder and flakes from various types or onions and garlic creating a much greater array of fresh flavors.  We doubled up and also dried tomatoes and peppers.  You can also dry meats candies and other vegetables or fruit.  Clean up was quick and easy and the time invested was minimal.  When grinding the ingredients we pulse first and pull out a portion for flakes and then continue processing to create the powder developing both flakes and powder from the sames effort.  By placing onion, garlic, tomato or pepper flakes in water or a broth you can partially reconstitute the product.

If you want garlic or onion salt simply add three times as much salt as onion or garlic.  Not sure why you would do this since you can add salt and garlic to a recipe without getting too much salt.  Did you know sea salt has a much salter taste and is actually much better for you than traditional table salt.  Try different salts and you will see another side to flavor and how you can shift the taste in foods.  We all need salt in our diet, but on average people eat way too much salt with one result being high blood pressure.  Commercial foods are laden with salt since it brightens otherwise dull flavors.  Yes, salt is a natural perservative and has it place.

Browning a portion of vegetables in a dish brings out the sugars and adds complexity reducing the amount of salt needed to stimulate flavor.  Rich, robust, mouth watering flavors are what you experience when you leave the boring and bland foods sold on shelves.  Food sold on shelves must use preservatives to last longer and must forgo expensive ingredients and invaluable cooking steps to lower the cost.  You don’t need the preservatives or chemicals and can use the time used shopping to create amazing dishes at home.  You are the chief and research scientist of good taste and healthy food for you and your family.  Chemical free food is not about doing without, but doing better.

Here is a WEB site out of Canada http://www.saveourplanetcanada.com that offers additional information on healthy eating and points to more resources on drying and preserving foods.

* Food dryer options: http://Harborfreight.com has an in-expensive food dryer for about $20 with 5 or 6 shelves and a small heater that does a nice job.  Walmart sells one and you can find a wide array you can buy over the Internet from companies like http://Amazon.com.  you could even make your own using a light bulb or two for the heat source.  Additionally you can use the summer sun for your drying by placing the product between two layers of non-metal screen.  You can find instructions to build one at http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-Yourself/1993-02-01/How-To-Build-a-Food-Dryer.aspx

Most dairy products except milk have synthetic carrageenan which include synthetic MSG.  A very few select dairy companies sell unadultrated products, but they are not carried in all stores and are sometimes hard to find.  Dairy includes half & half, cream, ice cream, cheeses, yogurt, soy milk, sour cream, sherbert, puddings (including mixes) and cream cheese.  Most dairy products post carrageenan on the product since it is required by law.  Some dairy products post artifical flavor which can mean synthetic MSG.  We have found souces for half & half, cream and ice cream although we make our own ice cream.  We also make our own yogurt and cheese, quite easy to do.

Most condiments(pickles, salad dressings, catsups, barbecue sauces, jellies, jams and the like) include high fructose corn syrup and may contain synthetic MSG.

Most cerealsincorporate artifical flavorins which may contain synthetic MSG including health and organic labeld cereals.  This includes health food bars made of cereals.

Most ready to eat processed foods like forzen dinners, chicken pieces, bread fish, hot dogs, luncheon meats and snack foods like chips and nuts include artifical flavors and may contain synthetic MSG.

Most packaged processed meats like bacon, hot dogs, sausage, salami, pepperoni and luncheon meats with that interesting Red tint include sodium dixode and artifical flavors with may contain synthetic MSG.

Some very basic foodslike cake mixes, spices and tomato paste include artifical flavors which may contain MSG.

Most candies and deserts including mixesand pie fillings include artifical flavors and may contain synthethic MSG and synthetic carrageenan.  Cocoa powder and chocolate chips or bakers chocolate are not beyond problems.

Are brand names safe?  NO! (they are often the leaders in chemical infusion of foods)

Are low cal foods safe? NO! (a haven for chemicals)

Are health foods safe? NO! (sorry)

Are organic foods safe? NO! (the word has been officially maligned by the FDA and food industry)

Are natural foods safe? NO! (not always)

Are artifical sweetners safe? NO! (artificial says it all)

Note:  where we say foods that list artificial flavors “may contain MSG,” it is more that likely true since that is one way manufactures can hide the ingredient besides a number of alternate names used for it.  Since we do not know for sure the product you are holding has synthetic MSG we cannot answer for certain it does.  And that is the way the food manufacturers want it.  Whenever we have experienced a food with artificial flavor listed it caused the symptoms of MSG.  We have since taken a hard stance, we eat no food with artificial flavor, since that signifies chemicals not found in nature.

If you are reading long ingredient lists to see what is safe to eat, save yourself some time.  If the list is long it is wrong.  Long lists always lead to more than chemical you do not need or want.  See a long list and just assume it is not for you and put it back.  No more reading for that product.

You are probably asking what is left?  Some health books say it is safe to eat from the outside isles of the stores.  Since diary products laced with synthetic carrageenan and synthetic MSG, and processed meats ripe with sodium dioxide and possibly MSG are usually reside on the outside isle this is not true.  In most stores you are safe from chemicals added within the food chain (beyond the farm) when you buy fresh un-processed meats, fresh fruits and vegetables.  Fours, corn meal, sugar, powdered sugar, dried beans, dry pasta, herbs and some spices are safe. 

Watch out for onion powder, garlic powder and seasoning blends they often list artificial flavors and may contain MSG.

What about eating out? Eating at fast food restaurants is asking for trouble since synthetic carrageenan and synthetic MSG are ways to control cost and attract repeat business.  High fructose is the ingredient of the day for any sweet treats or drinks including salad dressings.  Eating at restaurants in general is a risky business since most chiefs are not cognizant of the chemicals in most foods.  Chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder, cake mixes, nuts, cheeses, even tomato puree can be an ingredient they use to complete your meal.

Can I eat food from friends and family? If you are sensitive to the chemicals the answer is no.  Well meaning as they may be those tasty meals, deserts and snacks could accidentally be laden with commercial products that contain one or more of the ingredients.

What if I just take a small sample? And that in it self is a problem.  Just how many foods are you ingesting on a daily basis that include one or more of these chemicals?  It only takes one to cause damage and set off a reaction, thoughout a typically day surviving on commercial foods you are inindated with chemicals that can poison your system and cause serious damage.

Leave us a comment and we well will answer your questions with what we know.  If we don’t know we will tell you that as well, but we often research products or chemicals brought to our attention since others may ask the same question.  Lectin, aspertame, synthetic MSG, synthetic carrageenan, food coloring, sodium nitrate and high fructose corn syrup are major products/chemicals we avoid.  We wish we could avoid 100% the dixons from the chemical treatment of corn and bean crops, but realize that is impossible.  We do our best to minimize its consumption since it has an eleven year half life and does modify human DNA/RNA causing serious health issues.  

So what is the solution?  Cooking from scratch is the secret.  Buying bulk on-line is an enormous savings and advantage to buying from a broader food source and safe choices.  Anything sold on the market started in a kitchen.  Food science is not rocket science.  Most commercial foods had to dumb taste down to extend shelf life.  This means most, no all foods made at home should taste better than those bought in the store.

You can easily make:

Meats you can make: breakfast sausage, salami, peperroni, smoked bacon, smoked ham, smoked chicken, smoked turkey, hotdogs, and luncheon meats.  None are difficult to make and are excellent to eat without the unnecessary chemicals

Cheeses you can make run the gamut from soft to hard cheeses.  It is all easy to make until you start making speciality cheeses with the innoculation of specific spores.  Most cheeses can be made in minutes if they are a soft cheese.  Hard cheeses take a little longer and rely on curing in the refrigrator for several months.  Farmer, cottage, motzorella, feta, cheddar, parmazon and many other are within your grasp.

Breads, cakes and crackers are not difficult to make with the proper instructions.  French bread, traditional homemade bread, crusty Russian breads, pumpernickle, Irish soda bread, cakes and crackers of all kinds can be made with little effort and taste wonderful.

Candy can anyone survive long without some type of sweet.  If it can be made commercially it can be made at home.  Start by understanding what the candy is made of and how each step is completed.  Read the ingredients where not exact most ingredients must be listed and in the order of greater quantity first.  It is a starting point.

Condiments such as catsup, mustard, vinegar, barbecue sauce, cocktail sauce, mayonase, pickles, chili sauce are not difficult at all.

Spices can be cinnamon, ground peppers, cumin or they can be mixes like chili power, taco seasoning, barbeque rubs and even onion and garlic powder are often mixes (including MSG).  You can order the components of any spice mix and often find the same ingridents in one or more mixes.  We make chili powder which we use for chili, but also use in some barbecue sauces and in our chili sauce.  Some of the chili powders are used in both the chili mix and the taco seasoning.  Salsas get a nice kick with one or more chili powders.  We also find a number of dried peppers in other foods that add a hidden flavor which boost the complexity.

We will share recipes and secrets we have learned over the years on the WEB site as we have in the past.  In response to the need of so many recipes in a convient place we have almost finished writting a book that we use everyday to remind us of recipes we have built.  With over 400 recipes and great insight into the science of cooking we think the book will be well recieved and will allow chemical free cooking of just about anything you can imagine.  The book will be released this year if all goes well and the price will be very low covering publishing costs.  We hope readers will appriciate the material, insight and what we believe is the essences to cooking from scratch.  We can beat the chemicals and we know how to do it in style with robust, mouth watering foods that fulfill the desire for just about any food imagined.  We tell you how to not just cook our recipes, but how to take on other recipes and bring your favorites home.

Spies abroad and in our home country;

Now you think an economic collaspse is the worst thing that can happen beyond spies.  There is a lot more beneath the surface that you will find so hard to believe; you will deny its existence.  And yet it is as real and factual as the problems of the banking industry.  Remember the Weapons of Mass Destruction WMDs when we went after in the Middle East, it was the excuse for invading another country.  None found, it was a simple White lie told by a couple of our leading government officials.

We want to share a lie that has been perpetuated, that is personal to you and your family.  This is not someone elses child killed in combat, it is not someone else losing their home, it is not a series of inept spies somewhere else.  This is a story that is happening to you right now, every day in your state, city, neighborhood and home.  You are accepting it simply because it is the easiest thing to do; complacency.  It is the path of least resistance.  Besides why would big government and large money hungry companies ever want to deceive you?  Could you and your family be less important than a major corporation’s profits?  Could major manufactures sell your health for money?  Just because the lied about polutting our soil, water and air for profits and cost savings is no indication they will lie again.

Our most recent spy Anna gets so much attention for her looks people discount her actions.  No one doubts or sympathizes with the other spies or even our spies being returned.  Anna in fancy cloths and makeup knows how to flirt and uses it to get what she wants.  She is not the first nor the last ‘femme fatale’ to cross history’s path.   Marketing is much the same, it is about appeal, putting the best foot forward and sometimes selling what does not exist; or hiding what no one should see.  Anna shows us we should be careful of anything in fancy packages.  Healthy, organic, natural, low cal, light and a dozen other names and pitches have been used to sell just about every food on the market. 

Remember Olestra the silicon that made potato chips slide through your intestines before you could absorb many nutrients.  Were they nuts?  They did tell you what you wanted to hear and seemed to forget to tell you what you need to know, just like a secret agent working her mark.  Just like Anna so sweet and innocent, we openly trust these corproate giants as if they were loving parents, even when told they are dangerous!  Can Anna really be a spy?  Can corporate giants really be focus only on profits, money?  Could they be using words and word games to manipulate us?  Might they like the great magicians draw our attention to one thing while doing another to keep the illusion of caring alive.  Duplicity the world of spies and culvert activity.

Have you or a friend, relative or neighbor ever experienced:

Migraine headaches, nausea, vomiting, unexplained anxiety paranoia and depression are symptoms of chemical poisoning.  No it is not arsenic or some other well know poison, it is a combination of chemicals: synthetic Mono sodium Glutamate (MSG), synthetic Carrageenan, Aspertame some food coloring and the nitrates in processed meats are major culprits.  Eliminate those and more than likely symptoms will completely disappear.  Other symptoms are more serious causing temporary and long term mental disorders and cancer, including resports that brain cells are being destroyed on a daily basis.

Here is our story and what you can do to protect yourself from real, current, everyday danger that is in the food you eat and that you feed your family and friends.  You are being manipulated and it is all about money, yours or should I say theirs since you are paying numerous companies in the food chain to provide you chemical laden food.  This is not what is found in the fields and crops grown.  That is bad enough.  This is about chemicals introduced intentionally in the food chain to lower operating cost and improve profits.  One chemical is actually used to alter the consumption and buying patterns of customers.  Sure it is hard to believe, so was 911/the economic downturn, the Middle East war, the Vietnam war, fixing of elections and so much more.  Evidence on the Kenndy assination sealed for 50 years is still locked away for “our own good.”  We all have seen the video of the actual assination many times what will we learn that is so harmful to the general public?  We might uncover corropution in politics, impossible.  It is time to take the blinders off and make some serious decisions.

We are not alarmists, right or left wing, we are normal everyday people among that have stumbled across the truth.  Only after serious illnesses drove us to research and investigate issues did we find the truth and it was hard to believe.  Still today we cannot believe the massive cover up and how groups of people could be evil enough to perpetuate it.  I have no doubt we are a land of the free and the brave.  We are a land where opportunity prevails.  But we are also a land of the manipulated.  Our belief in the system is so ingrained that we blindly accept and excuse behaviors that would be criminal elsewhere.  Where money is concerned, big money; ethics often has no place.  A country built on the dream of free and open economics leaves room for plenty of corruption and it is all done without firing a single weapon.

Over five years ago we discovered the source to health problems in our family and once identified completely eliminated the problem.  Well, I may need to restate that to be honest.  As long as we stay away from almost all processed foods and do not try anything new all symptoms are gone.  My wife went through MRI’s upper and lower GIs and numerous tests to determine the cause for her serious health issues which spanned 17 years!

The problem was clouded by the fact that no one food could be identified as the source.  This was do to the growing number of processed foods that were using synthetic MSG and Carrageenan.  Prior to the inundation these products the symptoms were not as frequent.  In the seventies the problem grew, by the mid 80s the problem was enormous.  When she became sick she could not eat and when she felt good enough to eat she un-intentionally re-poisoned herself.  At three weeks of non-stop headaches and vomiting she was too exhausted to eat anything except soda crackers, rice and mashed potatoes or fresh fruit.  By accident she had eliminated the chemicals and her problems. 

A week into improvement and we would have bacon or sausage for breakfast or we would have chips or ice cream.  Back into the illness she would go.  We stopped eating candy, ice cream, bacon and sausage, and still the headaches came.  We stopped eating nuts and still the headaches persisted.  We stopped eating any number of products while re-introducing those that appeared not to be the culprit.  Without know it we were re-introducing products with Carrageenan and synthetic MSG.  We did not know they were the cause especially when we eliminated products that listed MSG.  She still got sick with products that did not clearly disclose synthetic MSG as a content.  Articles about MSG from food producers contested any harm from the natural MSG (even though they were using synthetic MSG).  If you ask some manufactures about these chemicals even today is it a word game to pin them down, but most manufactures when questioned will responed openly even though they are not so open on the packaging.

This was a case for the best crime investigator, we needed a specialist, a Sherlock Holmes, and yet all of the doctors we visited gave up in frustration.  Can you imagine 17 years of headaches lasting weeks at a time with little more than a week reprieve in-between?  Early on there was no Internet and the Internet in its infancy had little to offer as a knowledge base.  But as the knowledge base and communications channel of the Internet blossomed we found evidence that greatly advanced our research.  Other writers had posted their experiences and research.  Some invested enormous time finding valuable tidbits of information and did not give up.  To them we owe a great deal.  They confirmed what we had suspected for a number of years, but could not confirm.  We learned that Asprin, Buffrin, Excedrin and any other medicine for headaches were actually irritants to the brain offering short term relief and making the next headache even worse.  Trying telling someone with mind numbing headaches lasting weeks they cannot have a headache relief medicine.  There was little to no relief found in these drugs.

We had removed what we thought was MSG products and as we learned we removed products that used MSG under alternate names.  We learned synthetic Carrageenan has synthetic MSG as a common component and we found a few other chemicals that created the same symptoms.  In time we found that Artificial Flavoring was a home for synthetic MSG a chemical with no flavor.  It is also not a preservative as some think.  Like the best James Bond, Double 007 movie, synthetic MSG is a chemical that tricks, manipulates, controls the thought processes of the brain into liking a food and wanting more.  And you thought mind control was just in the movies, bet you can’t eat just one! 

Synthetic MSG is a marketing ploy that manipulates consumption through chemically induced behaviors.  No subliminal messages here, once considered illegal in television commercials.  Now they just use drugs on us by-passing our senses and our logic, eliminating our priviliage to choose.  Even though this overload to the brain by synthethic MSG is reported to kill brain cells (yours) isn’t it worth it for corporate market share and profits, after all it is your brain we are talking about not theirs.  Do think they eat the junk they sell?  And as we speak, according to Scientific American Journal, scientists are coming up with new food modulators that trick us into thinking food tastes sweeter, salter, better in some way.  They are doing this for our benefit so that they can put less salt and sugar in manufactured foods, so that we will be healthier.  Or is it to save them money and increase profits?  Remember the saying, “It’s all in your mind.”  Well that is fast becoming a reality for the taste and quality of most foods, just a mind game where you are being culvertly manipulated.

Five years down the road and with lots of experience we still stumble across a product that says NO MSG, Organic, healthy choice or all natural that has traces of synthetic MSG.  Our only real safe guard is what we make at home and a number of outstanding companies that care more about their customers than profits.

The lessons we have learned over a five year span amazes those around us and even we are amazed at how far we have come.  We do not limit what we eat only were it comes from.  Many processed foods are forbidden.  Fast food restaurants out of the question and restaurants of all classes are just too risky since they have no idea what is in the foods they use.  Spices, cheeses, dairy products, nuts and base products like peanuts, onion or garlic powder and tomato puree can contain synthetic MSG.  One diligent up scale fast food restaurant boosted an MSG free menu.  After my wife got sick on a cheese burger at the restaurant we contacted the company.  The corporate head chief called us and was very nice; he was shocked to learn about the cheese.

Avoiding synthetic MSG, Carrageenan and Nitrates in processed meats is tricky.  Jell-0 puddings have synthetic Carrageenan.  Planter’s nuts have MSG, Campbell’s soups still have MSG in some of their products.  Kraft uses MSG and Carrageenen in a large number of their products.  Name brands are not house hold words you can trust.  Most snack foods are a problem, most processed foods including diet foods, low cal foods and yes even the “health” foods are questionable.  And for you Vegetarians soy products often contain Carrageenan.  Want some yogurt, think Carrageenan.  Lectin a new entry to the chemical food chain now makes products like Miracle Whip and mayonnaise creamer.  Had they ever not been creamy.  Lectin allows the manufacture to eliminate more expensive components of the product increasing their profit while charging you the same price as the better product. 

The makers of M&Ms paid attention when Europe told them to either eliminate certain food colorings or not sell in the EC.  The makers of M&Ms immediately shifted to a slightly more expensive, but safe food coloring and Europe is now free of risky chemicals in their M&Ms.  Americans evidently made of stouter stock still consume the riskier chemicals or is it the makers of M&Ms just don’t care?

When several states on the East and West coast threatened to ban the sale of Crisco unless the product was modified; Crisco quickly modified the process and product.  Strangely other states that did not complain still get the same old junk!

High Fructose corn syrup a component of many foods cannot be digested as food, but instead is stored directly as FAT, no that is not an acronym.  Want to lose weight stop eating all foods with high fructose corn syrup for a start.  Reduce your cravings for more by eliminating foods with MSG, it drives you to eat more.  Then you can slow done the consumption of sugar and flour based products.  A little exercise  to burn oof the stored fat from eating fructose and the weight will come off.

Prior to Karo Syrup people made sugar water and added brown sugar or vanilla to to make similar products.  Sugar water is 50/50 sugar and water.  It only takes minutes to make, but in the 1920’s Karo syrup was sold as a miracle and sold as a real time saver.  More recently it is relied on because it does not crystallize like sugar will when heated.  Add a little acid to your sugar syrup and there will be no crystals (lemon, lime, vinegar or cream of Tatar).  Mayonnaise is just oil, egg, mustard and a few spices, it only takes minutes to make and is much better than the store junk.  Crisco replaced lard because it was more convenient and lately considered more healthy.  Well it is not more healthy and lard is probably in the long run far better for you than Crisco and the other chemical wonders.  Artificial butter is just as bad and was sold as a better choice to butter.  Don’t eat two pounds of butter with each slice of bread and butter is far better then the chemical wonders.

Marketing is about market share and sales.  Sales create revenues and profits just what companies need.  Do you get the feeling that maybe the marketing of commercially produced foods has become a little to aggressive in their drive for sales and profits.  Lies by omission, lies by deception and lies, just downright lies are alive and well in the food chain.  There are good companies, but how do you know who they are?  How can you tell the difference between truth and lie.  The FDA is not a government body regulating the health of food, but a tool to ensure economic health in the food industry.

Thankfully we have the Internet and people that are willing to share and speak up about the bad companies and are ready to boost about the good ones.  Your neighbors now span the globe and are posting lots of good information about what is and is not good for you.  Some companies actually hire people to spread false material and to deny any harm by the chemicals they use.  This is big money to them, if they earn just $100M a year a 10% drop would cost them $10M and they are looking to grow by at least that much.

The customer truly holds the reigns, believe it!  Lobbyists can talk to congressmen until they are Blue in the face.  Companies can court the FDA and change the definition of words like ‘organic’ to include unsavory chemicals.  If we do not buy theri bad products these companies will lose business as their chemical laden foods lay on the shelf, idle in supply chains and in overflowing warehouses.  They will go out of business unless they change their behavior.  Crisco changed when the demand was felt, M&M manufactures know how to change, and Old Coke was brought back despite being completely removed from the market.  Companies may not care about us, but they do care about our money. 

If enough of us, and far less then you think, decide to buy only healthy products from great companies that respect us we can change the tide.

If we decide to make many of the products we buy from scratch, companies will realize they are no longer in the drivers seat.  It takes to long to cook from scratch you say, nonsense you are listening to the marketing once again.  There are strategies for cooking just like there are strategies for navigating the grocery store.  Were you aware that most trips to the store take at least one hour and often sever hours. 

Next time you head out for even one item start the clock from the moment you decide to go.  Include the time to get the keys, wallet, purse, make-up, shoes and out the door and stop the clock when the shoes come off.  Our store is less than a quarter mile from us and still takes ten minutes to get to the store if you include getting ready to go.  Am I being petty, not really since that is the time that could be used to get ingredients out of the pantry.  Drive time might be the mixing of the ingredients.  Time in the store may be what is needed to cook it and the drive back could be the clean up time. 

Instant pudding is instant because of the modified corn starch (corn starch that has been pre-cooked).  Preserves take an hour to cook, but you do not have to stand there waiting for them to cook.  Cook three types of preserves at the same time, cook them while making a meal.  The actual time in making preserves is minimal and you get to lick the spoon.  It takes less then 3 minutes to make three different yogurts from milk and a culture starter.  Time yourself from the front of the store to the yogurt and you will find you take at least a minute to get the yogurt.  Now you have to pay for it and sack it or un-sack it.  Most soft cheeses take 10 minutes or less to make, some less than a minute.  Again planning is everything, you can be heating the milk to make the cheese while doing something else.  Every try doing the dishes, playing with the cat or reading a story to your child while driving to the store or shopping.

The shift to making foods from scratch is at first a little awkward since you are not familiar with the experience, but with just a very little practice you become adapt and know what to expect.  The aroma of home made bread, cookies, sausage, salami, pepperoni, jellies and jams wafting through your house is a wonderful experience.  Place some heated sugar water in a mixer with a little vanilla, hold a sandwich bag of ice against the mixing bowl and turn it on (slowly at first).  In a few minutes you will have marshmallow cream or marshmallows depending on when you stop.  Roll the marshmallows in powdered sugar and you are a real hero.  The kids love to watch and its not bad eating.  How much fun is opening a bag of marshmallows?  Now what flavor marshmallow might you like, mint, vanilla, chocolate, rum, orange, lemon; vanilla is the only one sold in the store. 

We have researched what commercial products are made of and what processes they use.  Much of what they do can be replicated with ease at home.  It is always going to be better and healthier since you don’t need the preservatives they need for extended shelf life.  Commercial products often forgo flavor because it simply costs too much.  Making it at home you avoid the cost of labels, shelf space in stores, national advertising, distribution channels, lawyers and all the other extras.  You can either make it for far less or make it far better, either option is a winner.  In most cases it cost less to make and also tastes much better.

How much can it change your life?  We have gone from a full recycle bin once a week to a recycle bin half full once a month.  Our shopping cart is basic products like flour, sugar, butchered meats, fresh vegetables and fruit.  We make our condiments, catsup, mustard, mayonnaise, barbecue sauce, salsas, cocktail sauce, chili sauce and a host of salad dressings I bet you think you can’t make.  We make sweet pickles, bread and butter pickles and Kosher dills.  We make puddings and cakes from scratch along with icings and pies.  We make our bread, noodles, crackers and even make our graham crackers.  Chili powder, taco seasoning, onion powder, garlic powder and a number of barbecue rubs are also within our scope.

With the right basic ingredients at home there are few things you cannot make.  We buy olives since in our area it is not economically feasible to grow them.  We buy dried bean in bulk, flour, Irish oats, yeast, baking powder, Cocoa powder and nibs, Safflower oil and a number of ground spices in bulk as well.  We also buy Green ham, pork belly and lard in bulk.  We smoke a number of meats including ham, bacon, chicken and sausage.  We make our own hot dogs and cold cuts.  Jellies, jams and puddings, there is no limit to what you can do.  None of it is difficult to make.  Yes it takes a little time, but does it really take more time than what you invest in shopping.  We go shopping once may twice a month now, a number of goods are delivered to our door at far less than we can buy the in town.  Our grocery bill has dropped to half of what it use to be and we have all the food we can eat, good rich, moist mouth watering food.  Without the chemicals poisoning us our doctors bills have almost disapeared.  If these chemicals are not making you sick now, how long will it be before you are forking out money to cover medical bills you could have avoided by avoiding the hidden chemicals in processed foods.

Through our research of commercially produced foods and very old cook books we have created over 400 recipes that not only give you a great starting point; we also through examples and clear explanation show you how to move forward on your own building other recipes that are favorites of yours.  We have modified old recipes to incorporate modern equipment and have modified new recipes to eliminate harmful chemicals.  Did you know if you add a flavor to sugar water like strawberry, add some corn starch and bring it to a boil and then as it begins to cool incorporate flour until it is very thick you have licorice candy?  Did you now Black licorice sold in the United states rarely has any real licorice.  It tastes bad and tastes nothing like real licorice.  Real Black licorice comes from a plant not a chemists lab and is good for you.  The sticky substance of marshmallow came from a mallow plant in the marsh.  Cooking and research into ingredients is a fascinating topic.  

A chief is one who heads a cooking facility and may or may not have a formal education.  You are the master of your kitchen and can indeed take the title of chief as many cook book authors have.  But do you go beyond chief to home scientist as you learn how different products work together.  What is the difference between baking soda and baking powder?  Why use dry or cake yeast?  Where does sugar come from, not just sugar cane?  What is the source of molasses and what is Black strap molasses.   Can you pre-cook corn starch and freeze it to later use in making instant pudding?

Looking for a new hobby that tests you skills and stimulates your brain  Don’t have the money for a team to scale the alps or the indurance for the Iron Man.  It is time to exercise those taste buds, your challenger the chemical laden corporate food chain.  Need a new goal for your children.  Cooking from scratch is creative, inventive and innovation that tastes good.  Every try to make a hot decadent chocolate souffle with a cherry glaze topped with real whipped cream.  Souffles look challenging, but are really quite easy.  Just how many chemicals can you remove from your families food supply without missing the treats they love.  The only thing we can’t make that the food chain can is the harmful chemicals and that is because we lack the desire.

Maybe one family member hones in on baking while another enjoys curing and smoking meats and another likes to work in candies or deserts.  Each becomes a specialist and an expert.  Each person in-turn takes on the role of Seu Chief helping collect ingredients, slice and dice or clean.  As the Master Chief does their magic the seu chief acquires the knowledge and skills of the master.  Of course the Seu Chief samples the goods before anyone else, not a bad position.

Cooking does not take a lot of pots and pans, but requires wise use of them.  Teflon coatings are not the best choice.  Try this for non-stick, a well seasoned iron skillet.  Or a little butter in a hot stainless steel skillet.  As the butter melts and coats the surface, drop a cup of scramble egg into the skillet and lightly begin to swirl the skillet, the egg will not stick to the pan and will easily slide out with no residue.  Walk away from a pan and burn food to the bottom, simply add water to the pan and bring to the same temperature to release the baked goods.  Any brown bits in the bottom of a pan from browning will easily release with any liquid like wine, vinegar, broth, lemon juice, tomato juice or just plain water.  Browning vegetables adds depth to vegetables, spices and even adds a nutty flavor to flour. 

Never, never, ever use metal scouring pads on your good pans, they leave tiny scratches that cause food particles to stick to the pan.  Then you have to buy more metal scouring pads to get the food out of the scratches.  Pans from the manufacturer are highly polished to minimize microsopic groves and sticking.  Watch the oils you use, the temperature you are cooking at and do not walk away from food while cooking.  Sticking ingredients can become a thing of the past.  Leaving dishes staked for later, is a simple way to convert food starches to glue and a 15 minute effort than becomes a one hour battle.  Clean up can be much easier when you plan and control what you are doing.  Ask for help from a friend or family member, good samples, good conversation and some interesting experiments will keep them coming back.

I always hung around my grandmother’s kitchen, looking forward to the occasional treat.  I also remember snapping peas, pitting cherries, cutting corn off the cob, stemming strawberries and a number of other things as we talked.  Great memories and some very tasty treats from an excellent cook.  Pretty smart about soliciting help from a young active boy as well.  Face it I will do just about anything for a fresh cream puff or hot cherry pie.  Of course there is home made bread, cakes, puddings pickles …

No matter how hard we try

Recently I was lucky enough to experience the full force of gout.  Gout was once considered a condition of the wealthy and was thought to be brought on by rich fatty foods.  Now it is attributed to genetic traits passed down, heavy drinking or diets that dehydrate.  Gout impacts about 4% of the population and is more predominate in men over 40 and some women past menopause.

The condition usually starts in one joint and is most often found in the ball of the foot, but can occur in almost any joint.  The condition is the result of Uric Acid, a naturally occurring waste in the body not efficiently being removed from the body by the Kidneys.  Uric acid is also the result of eating foods high in purines, Red meat, some shell fish and dried beans are examples.  When sufficient Uric Acid builds up in the joint it converts to Uric Acid crystals.  The crystals irritate the joints and swelling distends the joint creating misshapen appendages and swollen extremities.  The pain can be aching, stabbing, shocking and raw all at the same time.  Sensitivity is so great that even a sheet touching the area is too much.

My condition not identified right away lasted three months with extreme pain the first 3 weeks and enough problems to keep me out of shoes for the remainder of the three months.  With both feet impacted and one knee walking at all was a challenge at times.  During the three months distances greater than 50 feet were very rare.  Making it 15 feet was often a huge challenge!

The pain, far worse than any I had experienced sent me for medical help.  Well meaning doctors prescribed a number of medicines listed below.  Notice the side affects for each and consider which you might take, to me they seem like a deadly cocktail!  They are much like Russian Roulette.  Are you the individual that will land with one of these side effects? 

Would you load a gun, point it at yourself and pull the trigger if you knew that 1 in 5 bullets miss fire, maybe 1 in 10, or 1 in 100, how about 1 in 1,000?  Statistical models for medical drugs are often done with less than 1,000 test subjects which suggests evidence of these side effects are more often than 1 in 1,000.  If 10 people show symptoms it is 1 chance in 100 you may be imacted.  If it is 20 that makes the chances 1 in 50 and 50 makes it 1 in 20, not great odds, but they never tell us the outcome so why worry?

Allopurinol 100MG does not alleviate acute gout, but is “useful” in avoiding future attacks

Side effects

• upset stomach
• drowsiness
• diarrhea
• skin rash
• painful urination
• blood in urine
• irritation of the eyes
• swelling of the lips or mouth
• fever, sore throat, chills and signs of infection
• itching
• loss of appetite
• unexpected weight loss

It can also cause breast enlargement in both females and males.  And if that is not enough it can cause eosinophilia, hepatitis, renal function decline and, in some cases and hypersensitivity syndrome. This drugs can cause Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TENS).  The last two are life-threatening dermatologicalconditions.

Naproxin 500MG relieves tenderness, swelling caused by arthritis

Side Effects

• constipation
• diarrhea
• gas
• sores in mouth
• excessive thirst
• headache
• dizziness
• light-headedness
• drowsiness
• difficulty falling asleep or falling asleep
• burning or tingling in extremities
• cold symptoms
• changes in vision
• blisters
• skin reddening
• itching
• rash
• hives
• difficulty breathing
• swelling of eyes, lips, tongue, throat, arms, hands, feet, lower legs or ankles
• excessive tiredness
• hoarseness
• pain in the stomach
• nausea
• loss of appetite
• Yellowing of skin or eyes
• flu like symptoms
• bruises or purple blotches under skin
• pale skin
• fast heartbeat
• cloudy, discolored or bloody urine
• back pain
• difficult or painful urination
• ringing in the ears

• hearing problems

Other effects not mentioned include possible heart attack or stroke, but whose counting

Colchicine.6MG reduces inflammation, reasons for why are unknown

Side Effects

The most common side effects of colchicine are dose related and include nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. One of the most worrisome side effects of colchicine is that it can damage the bone marrow causing severe anemiaand low white blood counts. Reduced white blood cell counts can increases the risk of infections. All patients taking colchicine long-term require blood count monitoring. Colchicine can also cause hair loss, weakness, and nerve irritation.

Indomethacin 25MG to relieve pain, tenderness, swelling and stiffness associated with arthritis

Side effects:

• chest pain, weakness, shortness of breath, slurred speech, problems with vision or balance;
• black, bloody, or tarry stools;
• coughing up blood or vomit that looks like coffee grounds;
• swelling or rapid weight gain;
• urinating less than usual or not at all;
• nausea, stomach pain, low fever, loss of appetite, dark urine, clay-colored stools, jaundice (yellowing of the skin or eyes);
• fever, sore throat, and headache with a severe blistering, peeling, and red skin rash; or
• bruising, severe tingling, numbness, pain, muscle weakness.

Less serious side effects may include:

• upset stomach, mild heartburn, diarrhea, constipation;
• bloating, gas;
• dizziness, nervousness, headache;
• skin rash, itching;
• blurred vision; or
• ringing in your ears.

It is also reported to cause Psychosis, hypertension, tachycardia, photo sensitivity, bronchospasms and possible kidney failure.

Gout can be a sign of renal (kidney) failure and gout not brought under control can lead to kidney failure as well as permanent damage to the involved joints.  However, none of the medicines above reversed the uric acid crystals or were used to reduce uric acid levels.  None of the above medicines treat the actual problem of gout, elevated Uric Acid levels and Uric Acid crystals.

My condition was not a genetic disposition and since I do not drink alcohol that was not an issue.  Over 40 and male I fit that grouping, but am not the type to do crash diets.  My meals are regular and very well balanced.  So what caused the Gout.  Interestingly, I had a mild virus that was moving through the community.  I exhibited a mild temperature of 1.5 degrees above normal, a feeling of lethargy with a mild scratchy throat one evening in the early on set of the virus.  No big deal, the lethargy lasted two weeks.  I noticed a subtle drop in appetite but assumed it was the summer heat.  As common with a virus, my kidneys were more active than normal.  What I failed to notice is that I had no desire for liquids and was drinking at most a glass or two of liquids a day.  During the summer heat and out doors that is not nearly enough!  I had dehydrated not providing enough liquids to transport Uric Acid out of my body.  Once out of balance the body has a hard time adjusting back to normal if not caught early.

Toward the end of the two week virus I noticed one foot aching as if I may have dropped something on it.  Active and always into something I did not remember such an event, but simply assumed I should be more careful.  Over the next two weeks the joint around the ball of my foot became Red, swollen, hot and quite uncomfortable.  There were no lesons showing external injury, no rash or bite signaling an external source of irritation and no Red streaks suggesting a blood clot.  I must have really hurt foot, possibly a simple fracture or I had seriously jambed the toe.  At this point I was doing my best to stay off of it with Ice packs heat (and lots of whining and complaining, it just seems the right thing to do).

Things changed completely when the second foot took on similar symptoms and the full force of gout took hold.  Our guess was gout!  I made an immediate appointment with the doctor and landed in the emergency room.  The emergency room suggested it may be time I cut back on the alcohol before I completely ruin my liver.  Yes they were serious since I had told them no one in the family had gout.  When I mentioned not drinking I got the feeling they were looking for the AA number and on the verge of saying denial is the first sign of an alcoholic.  Shouldn’t alcohol be the first sign and what are you supposed to say if you don’t drink alcohol?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a puritan, I just don’t like the taste of alcohol, for me it is ice tea year-round (I know a potential diuretic (it seems to have little affect on me)).  Chocolate is my greatest addiction along with almost any food.  Yes, I am a little overweight at 5′8″ I weigh in at 235 pounds.  I have what is politely termed an athletic build.  Of Scottish heritage I look stout with large bones and thick muscles, well suited to tossing telephone poles size logs.  My body fat is at 25% which is reasonable for my age with 18% body fat being good and 12% being athletic for males.  Five percent is what body builders show at and that is a percentage that can only be held for a very short time.  Muscle mass weighs twice that of fat and larger bones have a greater mass, yet the BMI (Body Mass Index) and the average weight to height in medicine suggests I am obese.  A person 5′8″ should weigh 160lbs.  At my weight I am 75 pounds overweight.  If I lost 10% of my body fat placing me at a healthy 15% body fat I could afford to lose 23.5 pounds putting me a 210lbs not 160lbs.

Why am I telling you this, because it is the crux of the problem with medicine and the health care system that surrounds it.  Average numbers are used to determine the most common attributes, but when using statistics you need more than the average.  Two people averaging 100 pounds means nothing since one can weight 50 and the other can weigh 150.  One can be anemic and the other over weight, or one can be the normal weight.  Schools for years misused statistic suggesting that only 20% of a class can be in the upper echelon and at least 20 percent needed to be in the lower cluster with only 60 percent in the middle.  Faculty adjusted grades and tests to attain this perfection.  It was critical to a well run classroom and the integrity of the faculty.  Out of normal grade groupings meant the teacher was not doing their job.

Statistics is an indicator of possibilities not a representation of life.  However, the health industry has pounced full force on that average condition.  It gets even worse when statistics are miss interpreted to assume a corollary to a condition and outcome.  Did you know there is a less than a 10 percent cure rate for cancer with Chemotherapy, yet is it a predominate treatment?  Did you know over 98% of all murders eat Wheat?  Did you know their is no cure for diabetes in the medical community and that all medicines for diabetes only mask the symptoms often throwing other body chemicals and functions out of balance?  Some of these medicines are no longer on the market having far to serious an effect on way to many people.

While prescribing traditional, approved medicines not once was I told about the benefits of Black cherries, Black cherry concentrate, celery seed, bananas, strawberries or vinegar to reduce inflammation and pain.  No one in the medial community told me Black Cherry concentrate and the Cherries would help the body convert the Uric Acid crystals back to Uric Acid which the body could then excrete through the kidneys.  They probably just did not want to bother me with such trivia.

I looked at the poisons prescribed and opted for conventional wisdom based on those having experienced Gout.  The pain rapidly fell off with the introduction of these foods and a reduction in the Red meat and dried beans consumed.  As long as I stayed off of my feet they gradually improved.  constricting my feet with shoes and walking spelled disaster and a set back, I was irritating the joints that were filled with sharp Uric Acid crystals.  No one doctor mentioned staying off my feet or not wearing constricting foot wear.  None could predict or would venture a guess as to the recovery experience.   Interesting to note, none of the foods consumed had any warning labels or side effects.

The symptoms for gout are Red, Swollen joints that are hot to the touch and quite painful.  Infections can also carry the same symptoms.  The medical solution is to stab a 2 inch needle directly into the irritated joint and draw out some of the fluid.  If Uric Acid crystals are present it is Gout.  Gout is also indicated by an elevated level of Uric Acid in the blood stream, but that is not definitive, it only suggests an elevated Urice Acid level which can cause gout.  Does the needle stab hurt an already extremely painful foot, ABSOLUTELY!

An interesting note, the same virus had the similar impact on my wife who had it first, but with much less severe or enduring symptoms.  My adult daughter from another household much younger had a much lighter case (our warning to drink plenty of water could have be a huge difference).  A neighbor one block away and unrelated also had the same problem, but again for a much shorter period.  Two individuals were thin, two slightly overweight, two were male and two female.  The neighbor did not participate in food of the family shifting the cause away from a household and foods of a common household.  All four had varying symptoms of gout in one joint or another right after a mild virus with a low grade temperature that started with a mild scratching in the throat and 2 weeks of general lethargy with a decline in eating and liquid intake.  When this was mentioned to the doctors I received a that’s nice type attitude.  Doctors in the mainstream have little time for anything and often do not have the interest to go one step further. 

The virus seems to be the impetus for the gout in four people and based on their health and reaction to the virus fared with varying degrees of gout.  Where it is not hard science when 4 people that interact socially land with the same virus; it can be assumed contagious, since one is not related it is not hereditary and with one under 30 it is not old age.  That each got what appears to be some degree of gout suggest the virus 1) dehydrates the body (I lost 14 pounds in 2 weeks), and 2) it may cause other conditions that precipitate gout such as partial and temporary renal failure.

Besides sharing my pain, I hope this article points out four things:

1. What gout is and how can it be identified
2. How one can successfully treat gout
3. The dangers of prescribed medicines for gout
4. While we are a collective set of human beings few of us fit the medical average

Whether you take your medicine or not is your choice, but you must remember you are the one stuck with the impact of what you do.  Medicines that cause you liver failure, kidney failure, hepatitis, blindness or male breasts are not the fault of the doctor.  After all you asked their opinion and according to the medical community they prescribed what the pharmaceuticals are pushing.  And the pharmaceuticals have all the statistics needed to demonstrate the veracity and validity of their claims.  Besides, if you are not sick, who needs doctors.  If you don’t have the recent virus, go set in the doctors waiting room for half an hour.

With lawsuits at every turn and hospitals strangling medical recommendations under bureaucratic standards no doctor will tell you to go home and eat cherries for instant relief of your gout.  Telling you to eat bananas, strawberries and vinegar to reduce the swelling is just plain silly, even if it does work.  Yet a hundred years ago that would have been the prescription by an experienced country doctor.  The pharmaceutical industry selling their tintures and cure alls may be no better than the traveling medicine show’s wagon pulling into town.  Maybe they are worse since the now have the ear of the medical community.  There are good doctors, but they are getting rarer as standards get tighter.  Younger doctors also lack the benefit of how it was once done with protiens, vitamens and nutrients found in common foods.  And there are times we will need a doctor’s care, just remember you are part of the decision process.  To live or die and the general health of your body are decisions you will have to live with… or not.  The decision is always yours.  Even if the decision is listening to the doctor, you are still making the decision.  Subjugating a decision is a decision.

As for the Hippocratic oath “never do harm to anyone”, that seems to go out the window with the first prescription.  For those interested here is a translation of the Hippocratic oath from a distance period of the Greeks.  The Hipprocratic oath is not used in current practices.  Where some parts are a little out of date here is one part that may need closer consideration, “I will not give a lethal drug to anyone.”

“I swear by Apollo, the healer, Asclepius, Hygieia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgment, the following Oath and agreement:

To consider dear to me, as my parents, him who taught me this art; to live in common with him and, if necessary, to share my goods with him; To look upon his children as my own brothers, to teach them this art.

I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.

I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.

But I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts.

I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.

In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.

All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.

If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.“ 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath

Leonardo Davinci in the 16th century provide this insight, “The best advice I can give about doctors is to stay as far away from them as possible.”  During that period a medical doctor attended about 1 and a half years of medical school prior to becoming a doctor.  Those that did not meet the strigent standards went on to become barbers and did blood letting.  The Blue, Red and White barber pole traditionally referred to the medical side of the trade. 

Maybe in this day and age avoiding doctors entirely could seem extreme.  There are still valid reasons where the wisdom of a doctor will prevail and their insight will promote decisions that are beyond our common intellect.  If we do not do the research and investigate, if we do not learn more about how we are made the fault is still ours when we blindly trust others.  The Internet has become a marvelous tool where books, research documents, and personal experiences can be found.  When blended with what we learn from traditional sources we are better equipped to ask questions and join in the decision process. 

RNA, DNA, cell structure and Hormone signaling are not beyond our intellect, they are outside our scope of education.  The remedy, buy some of the same books the doctors do and learn at least a little more about that beautiful machine the human body, yours.  Renal failure sounds so much fancier than kidney failure, but if a doctor says renal do you know what part they are talking about.  Just what are the blood works ups requested and what else might be asked for?  It is absolutely fascinating to learn just how complex a single cell of the body can be, far better than re-runs on the old television.

A popular show on TV called House reflects on the decisions made and the tests performed on the patients behalf.  Often the patients are cured, but only after devastating and life threatening experiments and tests that leave the body ravaged and spare parts strung across operating rooms.  Having survived the tests and cure they, in reality, would be ill prepared to assume the monumental debts.  Diagnoses is often clouded by what the doctors do not know or information the patient refuses to share both in the show and in reality.  In all fairness determining what is wrong on the inside without destroying the subject is not as easy at it seems.  Symptoms can be caused by more than one problem.  Some symptoms mask other problems and it seems we are each just a little different which compounds the diagnosis.

There are any number of tests that can be performed and all have a price tag the insurance company is less than willing to pay.  It may be not so much the doctors as it is the system in which they must function.  Given a different paradigm they may function more for the benefit of the patient and less for the hospitals and insurance companies they serve.

Culvert activity, spies, chemical warfare, car bombs, foreign enemies we fear

The story of the Trojan horse in Greek mythology talks of a large finely carved (hollow) wooden horse being pulled into the an undefeatible encampment by those receiving the fine gift.  Inside the statue lurked solders of the enemy ready at night fall to attack and open the gates from inside the encampment.  Since the Trojan horse has been the icon and name for danger that lurks within an otherwise harmless gift.

Our WEB site and story carries a warning of the same import and of similar dangers.  We are not talking about foreign enemies, but those from within the nation that seek to do us harm.  No we are not war mongers or overexcited reductionist.  We are a typical family that has struggled with health issues caused by chemicals you are ingesting everyday.  This is not lead from a near by plant or downstream runoff, nor a oil spill with regional consequences.  These chemicals are in every city, town and village in our nation.  It is brought in by the truck loads and we introduce it willingly and openly to our family members on a daily basis and most likely numerous times a day.

How often have you heard yourself say, “Here take this poison kids, it will kill you, makes you sick or at the very least destroys brain cells.” You had might as well say it, because you are poisoning them with almost everything you feed them.  What, you don’t feed them junk food!  Oh yes you do, you just didn’t not know it was junk!  Big brand name foods with health written all over them are some of the worst since they insidiously hide behind what is supposed to be healthy foods.  The policy, “What they don’t know, can’t hurt them,” should be “What they don’t know can’t hurt us (as we drive for profit and cut corners)!”  After all health is only a minor thing until you loose it.

I know you are thinking conspiracy theory nuts truly gone off the deep end.  Well if that Trojan horse could have been looked at a little closer the Trojan war may have had a different outcome.  How much is your family worth to you 5 maybe 10 minutes?  Take a little time to read this article and consider its import.  If what we indicate is true, then you can take action, if it carries no weight; little has been lost.

Let’s start with why someone would do this:

Simply put the commercial food chain is about economics.  How to produce delivery and store foods at the lowest possible cost.  The FDA and others like them are supporting commerce not health.  Foods coming into the nation must be tested and proven safe prior to being introduced.  Foods within the nation do not require testing unless their is sufficient evidence to warrant such efforts (complaints from customers) and then there is no independent testing agency.  Most food testing and results are performed by or paid for by the manufacturer.  It is like having the fox watch the hen house.

Any product can be produced at various levels,  The higher the profit the less you need to sell i.e. Royals Royce.  But common commodities like food have competitors lowering prices and potentially driving profit out of the product.  Market share is in volume sales and volume sales require a cost structure that drives the cost out of harvest, production, delivery and storage.  The bottom line is that profits are made when people are willing to pay more than a product cost to produce and present.  Ultra-pasteurized milk is an ingenious way to keep milk on the shelf longer minimizing spoilage while expanding the market diaries can serve.  Pasteurized milk products have a much shorter shelf life, but also are cooked at a lower temperature retaining more of the nutrients.  Ultra-pasteurized milk is so devastating protein and nutrients that very few if any are left (water anyone).  Did you know the fat in milk costs money, if you add water to your milk at home, by weight you end up with low fat milk.  Hm-mm, I wonder what they do in the dairies to create low fat milk.

Unless you are drinking gallons of milk a day Low Fat milk has no value and that is very close to the truth.  Whole milk has more of the good stuff, but if you market low fat milk you can sell more from less whole milk.  You have to ask are they selling health or profits?  Most people use milk for cooking and maybe on a breakfast cereal, less the half a glass a day at the most.  Where is the danger, moderation is the rule not bad food.

Through a marvelous marketing campaign eggs got a bad reputation.  It was far better to eat sugar laden cereals that were height in corn or wheat that could drive sucrose (blood sugar) levels to new highs.  corn and wheat are sugars and have just as damaging an impact on you as sugar.  So for breakfast you were having sugar, sugar and sugar.  I know they talk of nutrients, but the nutrients are often lost in the processing.  Whole wheat is full of nutrients not the blanched and bleached heart of the wheat.

Marketing done right is a great tool to sell and promote, to drive a nation, a city or idea.  Marketing gone wrong can promote ideas, products and yes commerce that is dangerous to our future.

Competition, our nations economic foundation suggests customer buying preferences will drive market prices.  That is our willingness to spend that influences the manufactures product line and pricing.  The idea, those things of little value will be pushed out of the market, while those perceived to be of value will survive along with the host company.

Supply and demandand economic term also suggests the less there is of a product the greater the demand the higher the price one can ask.  The availability of diamonds is manipulated to ensure prices are kept high and profits are strong.  The drug industry investing upfront money in new products charges high prices for new drugs released on the market hoping to capture more revenue before competitors climb on board as the patent runs out.  Even illegal drug cartels understand supply and demand and market saturation.  Companies entering new markets will often forgo profits to acquire market share.  Once the market is secure prices can rise to elastic limits (how far customers are willing to go, before they shift to another product).

Here I am talking economics and pricing and you are wondering what this has to do with poisons and your family.  Well is it the justification for what I am about to tell you.  Profits in any industry drive business.  No company can stay in business unless there are profits.  Even not for profit churches and charitable organizations must cover salaries and expenses to stay afloat.

Companies that manufacture foods are no different, they can produce quality food, but many choose profits over your health.  Synthetic Carrageenan is introduced into many dairy products and creamy deserts because it makes those foods cheaper to produce.  Try to find a product in the dairy section that does not include Carrageenan beyond basic milk and butter.  Synthetic Carrageenan often contains synthetic MSG (Mono Sodium Glutamate) which includes carcinogenic chemicals.  Numerous reports by independent groups publicize the dangers of synthetic MSG and its harmful effects.  ADD, Paranoia, massive migraine headaches and much more are reported to be related to synthetic MSG.  The food industries answer is to cloud the issue by not talking about synthetic MSG, but natural MSG.  Why would the do that?  Because synthetic MSG chemically induces you to eat more of their product which means you buy more,greater volume sales, greater profits.  Synthetic MSG is not a flavor, it has no flavor, and it is not a preservative, it is a mind altering drug that reportedly kills brain cells.

You doubt they would be so evil.  Alright let’s take another marketing ploy that is much easier.  McDonald’sa well known, family contentious, fast food restaurant years ago was not make annual profit gains to meet their satisfaction.  The solution UPSIZE a marketing ploy getting customer to eat more through perceived value savings.  As you eat more your intestine stretches creating hunger pains when it contracts far enough.  Most food at fast food restaurants are high in calories which cause you to gain weight (just like cattle prepared for the slaughter).  The greater your weight the more you need to eat since the body is in survival mode.

Sodas actually deplete the protein you eat depriving your body of the foods nutrients.  Sodas contain high fructose corn syrup.  Fructose cannot be absorb by the liver as food and is immediately converted to fat another way to fatten you up.  Fast food restaurants added salad bars as an answer to the health contentious consumers.  The dressing had more calories that any other food on the menu, probably an accident or oversight on the part of their professional chiefs and chemists.

Several fast food restaurants now have single meals that exceed 1,000 calories.  Eating 3 meals a day almost doubles the caloric intake for the average human.  Fast food is a great name for these places, the food is not necessarily served that fast, but if you eat fast enough you will eat more than you should before your body says it is full, hurry up and shove it in.

So far I have mentioned Carrageenan, high fructose corn syrup and MSG.  They are just a few of the items to watch for if you can find them.  The FDA requires Carrageenan be labeled clearly on products that use them.  Cheese, ice cream, yogurt, half & half, cream, puddings and more often include Carrageenan and the incorporated synthetic MSG.  MSG is another animal all on its own, unless specific amount of the product is incorporated in a food the MSG label is not required.  There are multiple names for MSG allowed by the FDA (why?)and it can be included under artificial flavors ( why? it is not a flavor of any kind since it has no flavor, you cannot list it under natural flavors since it is a chemical and not from nature).  Before you even think it, Ms Dash is synthetic MSG and lots of salt, you are tasting the salt.

Even Planters Peanuts add synthetic MSG to their salted nuts to drive market share.  Pickles, lite salad dressings, cereals, TV dinners, seasonings and many other products incorporate synthetic MSG.  Natural MSG in the orient is from seaweed off their cost or the cost of Ireland.  All things in life have Mono Sodium Glutamate, but is is bond not free making a huge difference in how it is released into body.  Bond MSG requires breaking the bonds prior to absorption.  Free or unbound MSG can be absorb at extreme rates which is how it causes severe migraine headaches, nausea and vomiting; the body is being poisoned and is reacting violently to the poison.

What else should you watch for?  How about those pink colored meats like sausage, pepperoni, bacon, salami. 

There is one main concern when curing and smoking meat, and that is botulism. While botulism is most closely related with improper canning procedures, food-borne botulism also occurs in meats that have been improperly preserved. To prevent this, commercially cured/preserved meats contain sodium nitrite, which acts both as a preservative and a color fixer. (This is what gives store-bought bacon that bright red color.) In quantity, sodium nitrite is toxic and has been linked to migraines in certain people. While that is of concern, the quantity required to be toxic would only affect someone eating Homer Simpson levels of bacon. The main concern with sodium nitrite, is that when it is exposed to high heat in the presence of protein (like a piece of meat treated with sodium nitrite being cooked), proteins in the meat bond with the sodium nitrite to produce nitrosamines. It is also possible for nitrosamines to form from sodium nitrite in highly acidic conditions, like your stomach. Basically, the frying and eating of nitrite containing bacon presents the perfect scenario for nitrosamines to enter your system. Unlike sodium nitrite, which we know is toxic in large quantities and may make you sick if you eat too much, certain nitrosamines have been proven to be deadly carcinogens.

Here are two videos, the first sponsored by the meat associates and the second by an independent group.  The stories are very different.  We can understand the motive for the meat association sales, but what motive would an independent group have.  Destroying the sales of cured meats with dangerous perservatives does what?

Here is the meat association comments

And from the independent research group we hear

Food colorings in M&Ms banned in Europe because of the reported dangers were modified to a safer more expensive chemical.  Not to worry in the USA the FDA did not raise any alarm so you still get the cheaper more dangerous M&M.

Almost all common chocolate candies contain Carrageenan to make them smoother, thicker, creamer.  It is so much cheaper than Cocoa butter.  Lectin another dubious chemical is now in mayonnaise and Miracle Whip to make them creamer.  Were they ever not creamy, oh I get it, this was the marketing ploy to explain why they are using cheaper materials to make the same product.  Well DUH, why didn’t they just say we are removing good product and replacing it with bad product that could harm you and your family to keep or increase our profits.  I am sure we would accept lowering our families health and future for their short term profits.

There is much more to learn, but you have to start by considering the Trojan horse and whether you are carting it into your home, whether you are the enemies stooge feeding poisons to your family while filling their coffers.

If you say there is no choice and no other options are you just being lazy and taking the easy road?  Are you accepting that you are defeated before you have even struck the first blow!  Will you be so easily taken and abused for simple profits and corporate greed!  Stand up, fight back, research, explore and build a new life for your family that is as chemical free as you can make it.  Our WEB site and others share what we have learned and welcome others to jump in with their stories.

My wife after battling undiagnosed illnesses for 17 years is now healthy and leading a normal life since we have removed the harmful chemicals from our diet.  We have seen similar results in others where conditions change with a change in diet.

No, no, no, this is not a diet of lettuce and celery.  You can eat anything and everything you choose.  What you want is food free of harmful chemicals.  There is not a food made in the commercial market that did not have its origins in a home kitchen.  Through us and others you can learn how to make home cooked meals that are superior in taste, cost far less, take less time than you imagine and avoid many of the harmful chemicals introduced in the food chain.  Commercial food producers often forgo taste to increase shelf life.

Better still as we all demonstrate in mass what we expect of the food industry and re-inforce that we participate in commerce as long as commerce serves us, they will shift to playing by our rules.  Good food without harmful chemicals, tell us what is in a product, ask our opinion, and think of our safety and health while considering profits.  We will pay reasonable prices and given the alternative of high medical bills and health concerns we will pay more.  If prices are too high we will make it ourselves as capable individuals in charge of our own destiny trading time invested for money spent.  Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice same on me.  Fool me daily well that is just insulting.

Make a choice, speak up, say something, do something, talk about it with others, share this WEB site with others, look to other WEB sites, leave a message on this WEB site, if you have a WEB site link back to this one and others like it, and most important start learning how to cook without harmful chemicals.  Make a plan and take action!  We are here to help.

Why are we doing this,because my wife was quite ill for 17 years due to their practices and we are just a little annoyed they could do that to us.  Over the years, we uncovered many of their practices of hidding and quite honestly want to stop them in their tracks while helping others.  It took years to learn what we now know.  The more people we share this information with the more good we do (not a bad thing at all).  We also remove those individuals we help form the revenue chain of those poisoning us.  Our biggest impact is if enough people stop buying bad products, companies will stop selling us poisonous junk!  We will listen to marketing pleas with guarded judgement, no longer fools to bright color, sweet songs or a well turned phrase.

There are no paid commercials on this WEB site, all products recommended are because we found them to be some of the safest and best in the industry.  We receive no remuneration of any kind for these comments and would not accept them if offered allowing us to not be influenced by profits.

The only money we will make is in recovering our expenses in publishing books, selling at a very cost effective price.   As with anything, there is a cost to write, edit, print, publish and maket a book, we have to recover those expenses to continue propagating the knowledge within

1. Later this year we are publishing a book with over 200 recipes and techniques for making healthy chemical free foods that are the staples of life.  The book has taken three long years to complete and is a composite of what we have learned over the years.  The book price has not been set yet but we hope to keep it in the lower teens.  Our goal is to offer it at a very cost effective price.  It is an effort that we hope will help hundreds, thousands and maybe even millions, undoing the criminal acts and power of the food industry. 
2. Knowing sweets are part of life we are already creating a second book filled with candies, cakes, pies and other delicacies that are also chemical free and might even be good for you, if not eaten all the time or in large quantities.  Both books are far from diet books and are filled with great receipes that could verge on decadent.  We are showing you how to make good food at very reasonable prices, we leave what you eat and how much up to you.  Along the way we teach you how to modify other recipes that may be closer to your personal style of eating.
3. Down the road if our energy prevails we are considering a book that consolidates much of the information we have found on growing chemical free, heirloom food with a year round harvest.

After the first book is out, we look forward to other recipes and safe food sources from readers to share on this WEB site.  don’t wait talk to us, tell us what you think.  Join the project by simply learning more and helping your family eat chemical free foods.