George Walters Blog

Near- blizzard conditions from parts of the Mid-South into the Ohio Valley and Lower Great Lakes. February 1 – 4, 2009 time frame. Just thought I would give a bit of advance warning.

Sheesh!  I have been saying this for over thirty years.  And it’s just being looked at today?  Hmmmm.

People who eat raw garlic, just one clove a day, will catch fewer common colds than people who do not. Studies have determined that eating raw garlic as it contains allicin will reduce one’s risk of contracting a cold by approximately 50 percent. I would have to say even more than 50% and it doesn’t just stop there.  Garlic is sooooooooo good for you..  One thing.  Just make sure it is grown here in Canada, or better yet grow your own.  It’s one of the easiest plants to grow.

Watch for my new gardening book coming out this spring. It’s much more than just a gardening book though, one would have to get one to see what I am saying.  Or just ask.

Just one more reason to grow your own.  And for those that ask me.  Well I would have to say make darn sure you know what you are buying in the grocery stores, before you bring it home for your family, no matter how cheap it is.

The FDA has admitted that meat and milk from the offspring of cloned mammals such as cows, pigs, goats and sheep could very well have already entered the food supply in the United States.

“It is theoretically possible,” agency spokesperson Siobhan DeLancey said.

In January, the FDA declared that foods derived from cloned animals and their offspring were safe for human consumption. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, however, asked food companies to voluntarily maintain a ban on products from clones.

The voluntary ban did not extend to the offspring of cloned animals.

Clones are organisms artificially developed directly from the DNA of a single organism, rather than the mixing that is difficult in sexual reproduction. They are made by implanting the nucleus of an adult cell into an egg cell, which is then incubated by a surrogate mother.

According to critics of the technology, very little research has been conducted on the safety of consuming meat or dairy products from clones or their offspring, thus making it premature to bring such products to market.

“It worries me that this technology is out of control in so many ways,” said Charles Margulis of the Center for Environmental Health. He said that the FDA’s announcement that clones’ offspring might already been food supply “is just another element of that.”

A number of major U.S. food producers have announced that they will not use any ingredients derived from cloned animals, due in part to safety concerns. Companies enforcing a ban on clone products include Smithfield Foods, General Mills, Campbell Soup, Nestle, California Pizza Kitchen, Supervalu, Kraft Foods and Tyson Foods, the largest meat company in the United States.

Kraft said that consumer demand influenced its decision.

“Research in the United States indicates that consumers are currently not receptive to ingredients from cloned animals,” said Director of Corporate Affairs Susan Davison.

    localhost:9753   1/29  1:53:42am
  1.3             Display:     Temp/0/0          Power: AC  Battery: ok
             ---------- Outdoor -----------  ----------- Indoor -----------
Temperature: 24.4 F Hi 90.5 F  8/ 6  7:17am  68.2 F Hi 78.4 F  9/14  2:52am
                    Lo-39.1 F  1/14  9:12pm         Lo 47.5 F 12/29  1:06am
   Humidity:   64 % Hi   97*% 12/27 10:26pm    26 % Hi   71 %  8/29  5:48am
                    Lo   25 %  8/ 4  7:34am         Lo   23 %  1/26  2:12am
  Dew Point:   32*F Hi   70 F  9/13 10:41pm    32 F Hi   63 F  9/14  3:05am
                    Lo   32*F  1/29  1:53am         Lo   32*F  1/29 12:45am
Wind Gust:160SSE@  0.0 mph    Wind Gust Hi:035NE @  4.0 mph    9/21  4:32am
      Avg:159SSE@  0.0 mph      Wind Chill:  25 F   Lo: -40 F  1/14  9:12pm
Rain Rate: 0.00 in/h  Yesterday: 0.00 in Total:20.67 in since  1/ 1 12:00am
Barometer: Falling at 28.85 in  29.68 in  sea; 12-24hr forecast: Cloudy

ALso don’t forget to look for my new gardening book which is coming out this spring.

Step1 Select plants that you wish to save early in the season. Look for plants with healthy growth habits, abundant flowers or exceptional flavor.
Step2
Allow some faded flowers to remain on the plant toward the end of the growing season. The end of the bloom cycle is triggered by shorter daylight hours. Seeds will begin to form as flower production comes to an end.
Step3
Harvest seeds when the seed heads are dry to the touch and brown. Gather seed pods by hand or with clippers if stems are tough.
Step4
Allow vegetables to over-ripen on the plant before harvesting the seeds. Vegetable seeds are ready to harvest when the fruit is easy to pull off the plant. Beans should be dry and rattle inside their seed casings. Corn should ripen and dry on the stalk. Tomato seeds can be squeezed out of very ripe fruit and dried on paper towels in the sun.
Step5
After harvesting, place seeds on top of a water heater to dry for up to one week. Allow to dry thoroughly before storing.
Step6
Store seeds in their own protective pods or shake them free and store loose in paper envelopes. Harvested seeds should be kept in paper, never plastic, containers. Plastic may cause delicate seeds to rot.
Step7
Label each seed envelope with the variety and date harvested. Use a waterproof pen to avoid disappointment and confusion later on.
Step8
Place the labeled envelopes inside an air-tight container, such as a mason jar, and store in a cool, dry location until the next planting season. A desiccant made of 1 tablespoon powdered milk wrapped in a paper towel and placed inside the container will help absorb moisture.

I’ve been warning Folks about CFLs for years. It’s not only the fact that they cause headaches and skin problems, it’s also the fact that they contain mercury vapor, which is highly toxic to the nervous system if inhaled.

Compact fluorescent light bulbs are filling home and office environments with dangerous electromagnetic pollution, causing devastating health effects on some people. Neurologists are increasingly taking notice of the headaches and migraines being reported by people exposed to compact fluorescent light bulbs.

So what should you do in your home? Don’t buy compact fluorescent light bulbs! Buy LED lights and you’ll earn back the entire cost of the lights in just a couple of years due to savings on electricity expenditures. If you can’t afford LEDs, stick with regular incandescent light bulbs until a better solution comes along.

Makes One Think Huh???  Also, don’t forget my new gardening book which is coming out this spring. Sure wouldn’t want you folks to miss it!

People with high cholesterol live the longest. This statement seems so incredible that it takes a long time to clear one´s brainwashed mind to fully understand its importance. Yet the fact that people with high cholesterol live the longest emerges clearly from many scientific papers. Consider the finding of Dr. Harlan Krumholz of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Yale University, who reported in 1994 that old people with low cholesterol died twice as often from a heart attack as did old people with a high cholesterol.¹ Supporters of the cholesterol campaign consistently ignore his observation, or consider it as a rare exception, produced by chance among a huge number of studies finding the opposite.

But it is not an exception; there are now a large number of findings that contradict the lipid hypothesis. To be more specific, most studies of old people have shown that high cholesterol is not a risk factor for coronary heart disease. This was the result of my search in the Medline database for studies addressing that question.² Eleven studies of old people came up with that result, and a further seven studies found that high cholesterol did not predict all-cause mortality either.

Now consider that more than 90 % of all cardiovascular disease is seen in people above age 60 also and that almost all studies have found that high cholesterol is not a risk factor for women.² This means that high cholesterol is only a risk factor for less than 5 % of those who die from a heart attack.

But there is more comfort for those who have high cholesterol; six of the studies found that total mortality was inversely associated with either total or LDL-cholesterol, or both. This means that it is actually much better to have high than to have low cholesterol if you want to live to be very old.