Please Buy Local

If your not up for the 100 foot diet challenge

Stop by your local farmer's market

Or the stand on the side of the road

But, make sure you ask them where they are getting their produce.

Some vendors get their food from whole sellers, which mean you have no idea where that produce is coming from.

Genetically Modified/Engineered Foods

Are you aware that many of the foods you buy every week have been genetically modified?

Do you even know what that means?

Plants have been genetically modified in the laboratory to enhance the desired traits. This was traditionally done through breeding, but conventional plant breeding methods can be very time consuming and are often not very accurate. Whereas genetic engineering can create plants with the exact desired trait very rapidly and with great accuracy. Not only can genes be transferred from one plant to another, but genes from non-plant organisms also can be used.

Now having drought resistant, herbicide tolerance, and pest resistant crop does have it's advantages. But I think it's important to look at some of the disadvantages too. I am mainly concerned about the human aspect. One big concern is the unexpected allergic reactions that can occur especially in children. There really aren't many studies but there are several papers that tell about the monarch butterfly and the rats eating GM potatoes that I encourage you to read. If you are still not concerned about the risk go here.

I have a few updates on what's going on with your food from some fellow blogger that you might find interesting.

Anne over at Twice Bloomed Wisteria talked about her bees and GM corn, you might want to stop by and see what she has to say.

Also, Tocco from Coffee, Coffee, Coffee just posted about how "leading U.S. sugar providers have announced they will be sourcing their sugar from genetically engineered sugar beets" If you stop by to see Tocco she has also provided a link to sign a letter if you don't want genetically modified sugar.


I recently read that the Arkansas rice farmers have filed a law suit against Riceland. The lawsuit claims Riceland knowingly withheld information from Arkansas rice farmers that one of the company's genetically modified strains had mixed with their crop in 2006. The mixture led to major international rice customers rejecting the crop because of strict policies against such foods.

On a happier note, at Life in the Lost World Jayedee informed us all that the Clabbergirl family of products have come out and clearly stated that they will put no genetically modified corn in their product. Clearly our voices can be heard.

The Best Garlic Bread You'll ever Eat

Now doesn't this look simple?

I bet your saying to yourself, "Why do I need a recipe to make garlic bread?" Well, the answer is simple, this is the best garlic bread your ever going to eat and your not gonna want to forget it! Now, let move on.

Take a stick of room temperature butter and a cup of Parmesan cheese, mix well.

Then add a little (or a lot) of garlic, your preference.

If you really want to jazz it up mix in a bit of dried parsley flakes.

Next slice your bread (I use different breads; sour dough, french baguette, just use whatever you like) and spread a generous helping of the butter mixture all over your bread.

I like to sprinkle it with paprika.

Then, just pop it into a 375 degree oven until toasty brown and there you have it, the best garlic you'll ever eat.

Southern Fried Okra

My husband will tell you he never knew how truly good fried okra tasted until he had it in the South. You may have tasted that breaded fried okra out of a freezer bag or in one of those big ole buffets, but until you fix it (the right way) at home you can't say you've eat fried okra.

There's a long list of ingredients so get out a pen a paper, this is gonna take a while.

1) fresh okra

2) white corn meal

3) salt

4) cooking oil

Okay, y'all, now,here's what you have to do.

Slice up your okra into about 1/4 inch thick pieces, discarding the stem.

Place it in a colander and rinse with water.

Salt first then pour your cornmeal over the okra.

(I just toss it around in the colander over the sink until it's lightly dusted)

Place one layer in a skillet with about an inch and a half or two inches of hot oil.

DO NOT stir it.

As it begins to brown, just turn it over and let it brown on the other side.

When you take it up, drain any excess oil. You may want to salt again.

Now start eating!

THE SWAN CITY

I've always know Hattiesburg as The Hub City with it's central location to Mobile, The Gulf Coast, New Orleans, Jackson, and Meridian. But about a year and a half ago Hattiesburg, MS became know as The Swan City when the Area Development Partnership decide to unveil the Festival of Swans. The ADP selected the swan because of its elegance and beauty. We're talking about a small college town in South Mississippi, I don't know what they were thinking. In my opinion, I think they should have hung a bunch of hub caps up in the pine trees and kept the whole Hub City theme alive. Anyway, the swans are really beautiful, (blah blah blah) so I spent part two days running around town with friends snapping shots of some of the swans. I believe we got a total of 25 out of the possible 48 swans.

There is also a book titled The Festival of Swans. Click here if you'd like to see more on the swans.

Made in the U.S.A.

I want you to go around your house and look at the tags on your furniture, home decor, children's toys and clothes. Where are they made? I took a trip around my house after reading this article. I found that the majority of things in our house come from China. It made me want to cry.

I used to work at a home decor store. As I unpacked boxes, I found two very disheartening things in common:

1)everything was made poorly and

2)everything was made in another country. Of course 95% was made in China. Remember them? I also found that the amount of packaging with Styrofoam and plastic is in an abundance. I won't go into the fact that I saw WALL-E yesterday and I believe we are going to bury ourselves in packaging. I'll save that for another post.

Back to China, they poisoned our small children with their poor craftsmanship of toys. Surely you haven't forgotten the recalls, but the good ole USA companies are still outsourcing. Not only to China, but to India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam to name a few. And it's worst than that, watch this YouTube clip.

If you're not upset by the state of our economy and watching friends and family members get laid off doesn't bother you, then you might want to look at what your putting into you very own body. I realize you have seen the benefits of genetically engineered foods, but that's not the whole story. Anne over at Twice Bloomed Wisteria has told us all about how the genetically modified corn effects the bees and your honey. You might want to read this article and decide if you want to eat the food others are growing. Also, there's a book that discusses the way we eat called Why Our Food Choices Matter by Peter Singer, Jim Mason.

Jayedee over at Life in the Lost World turned me onto the 100 Foot Diet Challenge. It is really very interesting. It doesn't take that much room to grow a few veggies and fruits for your family, Hell, I'm doing it and I haven't got a clue, but you've seen how much were getting from an 8 by 30 foot piece of land. This is only our second year to have a garden and we're feeding more than our family with what we're growing. This year my goal is to learn to can!

I know that this is pretty scary stuff, but I don't think I can sit back and ignore what's going on around me. If the outsourcing of jobs does effect you and if our food is being shipped in, out of season, from half way around the world doesn't bother you and if we buy it with out asking questions we are contributing to the problem.

If you can't grow anything please buy local and try to buy made in the U.S.A. Also, you should check out this Wall Street Journal article on 50 Things being Blamed on Rising Oil Prices.