Wednesday, September 23, 2009

"Fast Food Nation"

I have been eating more healthy lately. This mostly all happened after two things occurred. First of all I went to a meeting where the speaker talked about pre-diabetes and she explained it better than anyone I've ever heard. She was from our local Health Dept. They do have classes and I'm thinking of taking them to learn more.

The next occurrence was a book I read called "Fast Food Nation," by Eric Schlosser. You can get it from your local library. Fast foods has been one of my downfalls. After reading this book I drive on past them. I don't know if I can ever eat a hamburger again unless I know where that particular cow lived and who killed it and processed the meat. Here's the part that really got to me (This book was written in 2001).

This is directly from the book:
The cattle now packed into feedlots get little exercise and live amid pools of manure. "You shouldn't eat dirty food and dirty water," the official told me. "But we still think we can give animals dirty food and dirty water." Feedlots have become an extremely efficient mechanism for "recirculating the manure," which is unfortunate, since E. coli 0157:H7 can replicate in cattle troughs and survive in manure for up to ninety days.

Far from their natural habitat, the cattle in feedlots become more prone to all sorts of illnesses. And what they are being fed often contributes to the spread of disease. The rise in grain prices has encouraged the feeding of less expensive materials to cattle, especially substances with a high protein content that accelerate growth. About 75 percent of the cattle in the United States were routinely fed livestock wastes-the rendered remains of dead sheep and dead cattle-until August of 1997. They were also fed millions of dead cats and dead dogs every year, purchased from animal shelters. The FDA banned such practices after evidence from Great Britain suggested that they were responsible for a widespread outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as "mad cow disease." Nevertheless, current FDA regulations allow dead pigs and dead horses to be rendered into cattle feed, along with dead poultry. The regulations not only allow cattle to be fed dead poultry, they allow poultry to be fed dead cattle. Americans who spent more than six months in the United Kingdom during the 1980s are now forbidden to donate blood, in order to prevent the spread of BSE's human variant, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. But cattle blood is still put into the feed given to American cattle.

Steven P. Bjerklie, a former editor of the trade journal Meat & Poultry, is appalled by what goes into cattle feed these days. "Damn it, these cattle are ruminants," Bjerklie says. "They're designed to eat grass and, maybe, grain. I mean, they have four stomachs for a reason-to eat products that have a high cellulose content. They are not designed to eat other animals."

The waste products from poultry plants, including the sawdust and old newspapers used as litter, are also being fed to cattle. A study published a few years ago in Preventive Medicine notes that in Arkansas alone, about 3 million pounds of chicken manure were fed to cattle in 1994. According to Dr. Neal D. Bernard, who heads the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, chicken manure may contain dangerous bacteria such as Salmonella and Campylobacter, parasites such as tapeworms and Giardia lamblia, antibiotic residues, arsenic, and heavy metals.
The pathogens from infected cattle are spread not only in feedlots, but also at slaughterhouses and hamburger grinders.


Now isn't that all interesting stuff to know?? When we were growing up we did kill chickens and hogs, but we knew what they had been eating and how they lived. I do not want to eat any animals that have been fed other dead animals or their manure. Good grief!!


I did find this a very interestng book from start to finish. It starts out telling how fast food got started. But it sure did some queazy numbers on my stomach!! Queazy enough that now I can drive right on past those fast food places and don't mind one bit!

CHURCH SIGN
Here's hoping everyone is having a wonderful and blessed Sunday!
This church sign falls right in place. We got over 4 inches of rain last night and today.




Results

I got up early this morning and went to Kroger (grocery store pharmacy) for a free cholesterol screening. Of course they do your weight and your BMI (Body Mass Index), your body fat, and all that good stuff! I'm happy to report that my cholesterol was 129. Whoo-hoo!! That's great! However, my fasting glucose was 108 and they like it to be below 100. She said I needed to exercise to lower it. Okay.

Next my HDL (good cholesterol) was 37 and they like it to be higher than 50. Okay.
She said I needed to exercise to raise it higher.

Point taken. I certainly do not want diabetes, and they consider a 108 glucose to be "pre-diabetic" these days. Also my mother was diabetic.

My Triglycerides were great, the total cholesterol was great, and the LDL (bad cholesterol) was great.

It's been raining hit and miss here and there, to and fro and hither and yon, but we haven't had any right here today. I got the lawn mowed and I used the push mower a lot. I was so sweaty and my hair was dripping. (I considered that exercise!) Wonder if that got those numbers moving in the right direction?!

This pretty rose is from a rose that we have growing in the yard. It sure is a pretty color and I love how this one has some rain drops on it. I don't know the name of it though. You can click on it to enlarge it.












Fall of the year and time for Mums again. I think Mums are so pretty. I always have a hard time deciding on what color to get, but you can't go wrong with yellow, in my opinion!
At one time I had some huge ones in the flower garden, but over time they died out. I'll probably set these out and see if they come back next year.


I hope everyone is having a wonderful week!!

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Sunday Sign

Okay, for some reason Blogger will not let me download pictures. This is the first time this has happened to me. Not sure what is up with that.


I just took this sign today. This is what it said. (Just pretend it's on a sign!!)

People fail if their
wishbone is where
their backbone
should be.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday!!

Update:
Thanks Diane! I did what you said and it let me upload the picture!!



Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Roses and Wild Horses

I wanted to share some more pictures from the rose garden I got to visit last month over at Renfro Valley, KY. It was an awesome place and this is all in this couple's back yard. It is supposed to be in a quilt pattern. I would love to go back again. I was amazed at how many roses(200) they had and what good condition they were all in. He takes care of them and obviously does a wonderful job and he must enjoy it. He certainly does a fantastic job! You should be able to enlarge all these photos for a better view.























I've been sitting here listening to Susan Boyle sing "Wild Horses." It's so beautiful. I've just been listening over and over again. That's one of those songs you just want to sit back and close your eyes, relax, and just enjoy listening. At least for me! This is a song that the Rolling Stones sung but she does it sooo much better, IMO. If you may recall she was on Britian's Got Talent, but she didn't win, but came in 2nd, as I recall. She blew them away singing "I Dreamed a Dream," which was also beautiful! She has a CD coming out late in November. I have already pre-ordered mine from Amazon.com. This song will be on there and "I Dreamed a Dream" but that's about all I know about it.


Sunday, September 13, 2009

Sunday Sign

SUNDAY SIGN




Sunday, September 06, 2009

Remembering 9-11 and More

Eight years have passed since this horrible day that I'm sure all of us reading can recall very very well. I've been watching some of the things about it on TV this morning. What a shocking and sad day that was. I think everyone was numb from the shock of seeing this when it unfolded back in 2001. I don't think any of us will forget it.












On another note, last Friday I went to a wedding!! Aren't they a cute couple?? Haha! No, actually these little doggies were dressed up in their hot pink dresses for the occasion with little matching bows in their hair.














Here's a closer picture of one of them (Josie). By the time one was dressed the other had ran out of her dress! It was pretty funny! Their owners were married in a quiet ceremony on their back deck, and it was very nice.


I had to laugh at the cake topper! He had no chance of escape!!

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