The Canary Report

The poisoning has begun

Posted on Jul 03, 2010 by Susie Collins in Blog, Environment, Guest Bloggers

Thursday evening we found a voice message left by the owner of the land next to ours saying they would be spraying ROUND UP and select herbicides sometime on Friday. And there went our plans for a safe and happy holiday weekend.

By guestblogger Jacki Palmer-Boyce.

Our neighbor spraying his fields on Friday next to our home and organic gardens. Our holiday weekend has been ruined!

Thursday evening we came inside the house @ 10pm to a voice message left by the owner of the land saying they would be spraying ROUND UP and Select herbicides sometime on Friday. This ruined our HOLIDAY weekend. The soybean field is right next door to our property to the WEST and NORTH side of our land. We had no idea they were going to spray so our plans were to camp in our own yard “campsite” to avoid crowds and chemicals from the Holiday weekend. We had the tent sent up and plans for a fire with a few friends.

With the girls on a better day.

I was very grateful for the “warning” that was a life saver. HOWEVER all our plans of enjoying our own homestead went up in “fumes.” I had to keep all the windows closed today and it is a perfect day outside 70′s and sunny with low humidity and low dew point, so I had to miss out on a GREAT weather day. I could not enjoy my own yard, my “organic” gardens, my spring/well water are all at risk every time they spray more and more poisons into the land and air, which effects the water supply.

With Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, I smell, taste and feel the chemicals even though my husband John does not. So I am locked inside the house while he is outside. We can not go to our parks or Findley due to too many people and all their toxic chemicals they bring with them on a Holiday camp weekend: lighter fluid, tiki lights,sunscreen, the list goes on and on of things you have to avoid around crowds. So needless to say: several hours of spraying ruined several days to weeks of my life.

The tent we'd set up for "camping" in our yard this weekend.

I wonder how this can be legal and yet someone caught with a joint goes to jail. It is all about the $$ and GREED… MONSANTO & DOW should be in prison for poisoning people for year after year. Read about how glyphosate is toxic and Roundup is worse. Read here about clethodim herbicide. I hate when people say it is “JUST” roundup like it is something “safe”… boy did marketing pull the wool over so many zoombies’ eyes… WAKE UP, PEOPLE, CHEMICALS KILL! And not just the bugs!

I am very lucky the owner “warns me”– he doesn’t have to do that in OHIO; some states it is a law. So please know how thankful I am for the warning, without that I’d have my windows all open and clothes on the line and playing in my yard.

The raised beds out front, south exposure, with peppers and tomatoes.

This spraying happens about 3 to 4 times a growing season with different types of herbicides and fugicides. Each time is like a knife going into my heart and soul. We’d love to move away from all this madness they call country living and farming, but at this point in time it is not in the stars. So we try so hard to keep our little eco friendly homestead as chemical free as possible (in our control) and pray for protection from the chemicals when they spray. It beats the helicopter they used to spray fungicides last year– now that really drifted!

Just makes me so sad that this is still legal. Think of the millions of gallons of pesticides/herbicides used all over the USA. Add that to the GULF oil well blowout and we are doomed. They could stop it but choose not to. It brings in too much $$$$ and GREED is the name of the game… NOT HEALTH.

I want to end my day with a positive: I am well for the shape I am in…. I want to end with the positive… I must always be grateful no matter what… each day is a blessing even if it doesn’t turn out like you hope.

jj

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Tags: Environment, Food, Garden, MCS, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Organic, Pesticides, Pollution, Toxic

MCS Awareness Month: Yellow colors our world

Posted on May 02, 2010 by Susie Collins in Blog, MCS, Organic Gardening, Susie Collins

Many members of our canary community have adopted yellow as this year’s theme color for MCS Awareness Month!

Jacquelyn Palmer-Boyce, one of our flock, surrounds herself in canary yellow for MCS Awareness Month. ©2010 John Boyce

Heralding MCS Awareness Month, profile photos radiating the warmth and vibrancy of yellow are popping up throughout our community on Facebook and on our network. Yellow, for those of us with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, symbolizes the canary in the coal mine, with which we all identify. Our identity as a canary embraces and honors our bodies’ wisdom, and uses our song to alert the world of the menacing dangers of toxic consumer goods and a polluted planet.

“The color Yellow has stood for wisdom and intellect throughout the ages. It is full of creative and intellectual energy. A sun color, it makes us feel happy and optimistic. Expansive and free to do and be all that we can be. Cheerful, Joyful, Curious, Yellow promotes optimism. Helps you feel expressive, friendly and experimental.”

Jacki, who had to give up her career as a nurse due to developing Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, turned her misfortune into a blessing, inspiring us all. She’s athletic, often kayaking, hiking, and working in her garden. She and her husband, John, live a completely nontoxic lifestyle, growing veggies and roots crops in an organic garden, and raising chickens for meat and eggs. John, who took Jacki’s photo above, hunts wild game, bringing home venison, rabbit, goose, turkey, beef, lamb and goat. They eat tons of fresh veggies, green smoothies, but not much bread and no sweets.

About the above photo, Jacki says, “Yellow is the color for MAY… learn, and educate others on MCS… we need your help. Thank you for caring and sharing… love ya, jj.”

~~~

Thanks to Lourdes Salvador for her contribution to this post about the color yellow.

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Tags: Food, Fresh Air Photos, MCS, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Photography, Support

KFC and Susan G. Komen launch huge pinkwashing campaign

Posted on Apr 17, 2010 by Susie Collins in Blog, Environment, Food, Social Justice, Susie Collins

Kentucky Fried Chicken and Susan G. Komen for the Cure team up for the largest pinkwashing campaign in the history of breast cancer.

This commercial introduces the “Buckets for the Cure(tm)” campaign from KFC. KFC is joining the fight against breast cancer with this national campaign aimed at educating more women about breast health, generating support for the cause and attempting to make the single largest donation in the history of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

I was disgusted to see the KFC commercial above announcing their alliance with the Susan G. Komen Foundation to raise funds for breast cancer “education.” Regular readers of The Canary Report know that I have a pet peeve about pinkwashing. As a breast cancer survivor, I am sickened when companies who produce products containing carcinogens jump on the pink bandwagon, suckering the public into buying unsafe products through the guise of caring about our breast health.

Christina Pirello reports at The Huffington Post on Susan G. and KFC: An Unholy Alliance. Pirello says that “according to Neal Barnard, MD, president and founder of Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine (http://www.pcrm.org), both the grilled and fried chicken served up in these pretty pink buckets contributes to the development of cancer, including breast and prostate cancers.”

Spend some time on the Susan G. Komen for the Cure website and you’ll see lots of resources for women to find information once diagnosed. You’ll also find sections advising women about living a healthy lifestyle by eating a healthy diet and maintaining a healthy weight. But how can they really talk about healthy eating when they partner with the very kinds of companies that destroy the health of all people, not just women? How can they accept one penny from companies like KFC whose products create the exact health problems this organization is sworn to defeat? Someone is tilting at the wrong windmill.

Further, as an animal lover and the owner of four precious hens, I hope you think twice about the source of the chicken you eat. KFC practices factory farming, a food production practice so cruel and inhumane that I am unable to even write about it or give you links to learn more. I hope you are being conscious about the sources of your food and thinking twice before eating any factory farmed animals.

Boycott this KFC-Komen campaign!

NOT!

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Tags: Cancer, Children's Health, Environment, Food, Products, Toxic

US Senate committee holds hearing on public exposures to toxic chemicals

Posted on Feb 04, 2010 by Susie Collins in Blog, Environment, Government Regulation, Susie Collins

Now available: Transcript and webcast of today’s hearing at the United States Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health entitled, “Current Science on Public Exposures to Toxic Chemicals.”

Led by Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), at left, the United States Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health held a hearing today entitled, “Current Science on Public Exposures to Toxic Chemicals.” I urge you to become familiar with Sen. Lautenberg’s work on the hill; along with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), he’s the greatest advocate in the U.S. Senate for toxic chemical policy reform. For those of you who follow The Canary report, you’ll remember a post I did on Sen. Launtenberg back in February 2009 when he assumed the chairmanship of this committee. Lautenberg is the senator who introduced the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act, a proposal to overhaul federal restrictions on toxic chemicals.

Canaries will recognize the name of one other of our heroes among the panel members: Ken Cook, president at the Environmental Working Group.

Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health hearing entitled, “Current Science on Public Exposures to Toxic Chemicals.”
Thursday, February 4, 2010
10:00 AM EST
EPW Hearing Room – 406 Dirksen

Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics, and Environmental Health, will convene a hearing to examine the current science on public exposures to toxic chemicals.

Majority Statements
Barbara Boxer
Frank R. Lautenberg

Minority Statements
James M. Inhofe
Witnesses

Opening Remarks

Panel 1

Steve Owens
Assistant Administrator, Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances
Environmental Protection Agency

Henry Falk M.D., M.P.H.
Acting Director, National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

John Stephenson
Director, Natural Resources and Environment, U.S. Government Accountability Office

Linda Birnbaum Ph.D., D.A.B.T., A.T.S.
Director
National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences

Panel 2

Molly Jones Gray
Participant in a Biomonitoring Study

Ken Cook
President
Environmental Working Group

Charles McKay MD FACMT, FACEP, ABIM
Division of Toxicology, Department of Emergency Medicine, Hartford Hospital

Tracey J. Woodruff PhD, MPH
Associate Professor and Director
Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, University of California, San Francisco

I don’t know how much change is going to be made as a result of these hearings, but I can tell you that trends are moving in the direction of toxic chemical policy reform. If President Obama manages to hang on to a second term despite the discontent that is brewing due to the economic problems, we will have a much better chance at stronger reform. I can tell you though, that even though the wheels of Washington, DC, move painstakingly slow, I’ve seen more happening to enforce the Clean Air Act and to put progressive environmental policies in place over the past year than I saw in the entire eight years of the Bush administration.

Link to transcript and webcast of today’s hearing.

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Tags: Air, Chemicals, Environment, Food, Law, Policy, Pollution, Products, Research, Toxic, Water

Short film: The People’s Grocery

Posted on Jan 29, 2010 by Susie Collins in Blog, Food, Media/Videos, Organic Gardening, Susie Collins

Food justice: The People’s Grocery in West Oakland is an inspiration to communities everywhere about the importance of a healthy diet and about knowing where your food comes from. Director of the project Brahm Ahmadi is a hero!

In West Oakland, California, where liquor stores have replaced markets, People’s Grocery is creating a healthy alternative, offering access to organic produce. Through urban gardens and local farms, People’s Grocery supports a culture based on connection to the land, sustainable agricultural practices, and regenerating community.

Brahm Ahmadi is the co-founder and executive director of People’s Grocery. He has a B.A. in Sociology from the University of California and is an MBA candidate at the Presidio School of Management. Brahm combines social enterprise, cooperative economics, urban agriculture, public education and youth development to build healthy and stable inner city communities. He is also Executive Director of the North Oakland Land Trust, which preserves properties in North Oakland for the exclusive purpose of community gardening.

Link (A great site with oodles of online films to watch!)

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Tags: Children's Health, Environmental Health, Food, Healthy Living, Organic, Video, Work

Xtrema cooking

Posted on Jan 20, 2010 by Susie Collins in Blog, Food, Products, Susie Collins

Founder of Xtrema cookware says it’s made of nontoxic material that can be left on the heat indefinitely and not emit toxic fumes even if boiled bone dry.

This Xtrema cookware looks interesting, coated in a nontoxic ceramic glaze that will not emit toxic fumes even if cooked bone dry on high heat. The high heat safety factor is in comparison to Teflon, which studies show emits dangerous toxic fumes when overheated. Xtrema also claims their nylon lids and utensils are nontoxic.

Feature: High temperature, ultra-durable non- scratch finish, inside and out.

Benefit: Xtrema products feature a revolutionary and technologically advanced ceramic non-scratch ceramic glaze on the inside and outside of every vessel. This ceramic-glaze consists of 100% natural ceramic materials and is completely environmentally safe. The glaze will never emit gaseous or toxic odors (at any temperature), it will not be damaged by the use of metal cooking utensils, and will never peel or flake off into the food. The ceramic glaze on the outside of the cookware also provides faster clean-up and helps keep Xtrema cookware looking brand new, year after year.

The flash graphic on the header on their website is a little scary: thick black smoke curling and swirling. But they say their product is as nontoxic as they come.

The founder of Xtrema is Rich Bergstrom, a former Corning representative. I love my Corning baking dish–I’ve had it for 30 years–and I often recommend Corning to canaries asking about cookware. Bergstrom has something interesting to say about Corning:

Corning Ware manufacturing facility in Martinsburg, WV was closed and dismantled in 2002. Corning Ware is still being marketed today by World Kitchen but the product is now being made of stoneware and not the patented pyro-ceram material that made Corning Ware so recognizable.

Hmmm. Not sure I can recommend that product anymore, at least not until I am convinced the new material is as superior and nontoxic as the old Corning. Is anyone using Corning purchased after 2002?

Has anyone tried Xtrema? It’s not cheap. This darling tea set is $129 and their most basic skillet about $100. But I think it’s going on my wish list. Right after the new HEPA air filter and organic cotton futon for the bedroom.

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Tags: Children's Health, Food, Healthy Living, Home, Indoor Pollution, Nontoxic, Products

Short film: The Story of Food

Posted on Jan 19, 2010 by Susie Collins in Blog, Food, Media/Videos, Susie Collins

USC Canada’s new short, animated film will get you thinking about our broken food system.

It identifies what’s gone wrong with the modern food system, and what we can do to rebuild it.

Link to more info about the film.

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Tags: Chemicals, Environment, Food, Garden, Health, Healthy Living, Organic, Products, Video

Documentary film: Locavore

Posted on Nov 01, 2009 by Susie Collins in Blog, Home & Garden, Media/Videos, Susie Collins

A film about the return to local food or “Locavorism.”

Locavore is an inspiring new documentary about the inevitable return to the local diet. Less than a generation ago human beings worldwide traveled less than 10 miles to obtain the majority of the food they ate. Today the average conventionally grown vegetable has traveled more than 1500 by the time it has reached your pantry. Our food today is over processed, stale, and lacks nutrition. This new film, featuring some of the neo-pioneers of the Locavore movement will educate, inspire, and revitalize bringing health to our bodies AND our communities.

Link to learn more about the film.

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Tags: Environment, Food, Garden, Healthy Living, Home, Organic, Video

For the love of pumpkin

Posted on Oct 31, 2009 by Susie Collins in Blog, Home & Garden, Kimberly Shaw

Pumpkins are a rich source of beta-carotene and potassium. Pumpkin seeds are a good source of iron and zinc.

Post by Kimberly Shaw.

I adore pumpkins. They are such a cheerful fruit with their bright orange color, plus they are packed with antioxidants! Here is one of my family’s favorite autumn muffin recipes:

Pumpkin Muffins

1 cup organic cooked pumpkin
1/2 cup organic canola oil
1/2 cup honey
2 organic eggs (or egg replacer)
1 3/4 cups organic whole wheat flour**
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp aluminum-free baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp cinnamon*
1/2 tsp nutmeg*
1/3 cup water
1/2 cup organic chopped nuts (VERY optional)

**For gluten-free recipe, use organic brown or white rice flour in combination with potato flour and tapioca flour. I use 1 cup organic brown rice flour, 1/2 cup of potato starch flour and 1/4 cup of tapioca flour.

*Omit spices if allergic, can replace with 1/4 tsp ginger

Beat oil and honey together in bowl; add eggs or egg replacer and mix well. Combine dry ingredients in another bowl. Add dry ingredient with liquid mixture. Add the water. Mix in pumpkin (and nuts, if desired). Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

Recipe makes approximately one dozen muffins. I normally double it, as they freeze well.

Variation: If you are allergic to pumpkin, you can use this same recipe with yams or persimmon pulp.

~~~

Interesting pumpkin information:

Here is a video on how to roast pumpkin seeds. (I just use organic butter or oil and sea salt.)

Did you know pumpkin flowers are edible?

Pumpkin Facts

Pumpkin History

~~~

Photos by Kimberly Shaw.

Come visit me at my blogs Adventurous Canary and Serendipity. Read about my documentary film on Multiple Chemical Sensitivity at Adventurous Canary Productions.

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Tags: Food, Healthy Living, Home, Organic

Film: Killing Fields

Posted on Oct 13, 2009 by Susie Collins in Blog, Environment, Media/Videos, Susie Collins

Much of the cheap meat and dairy produce sold in supermarkets across Europe is arriving as a result of serious human rights abuses and environmental damage in one of Latin America’s most impoverished countries.

Ecologist reports on Killing fields: the true cost of Europe’s cheap meat. “Statistics compiled by pressure groups suggest that as much as 23 million litres of pesticides and herbicides are sprayed in Paraguay each year, including several that have been classified by the World Health Organisation as being ‘extremely hazardous’.”

Cheap meat has become a way of life in much of Europe, but the full price is being paid across Latin America as vast soya plantations and their attendant chemicals lead to poisonings and violence

Much of the cheap meat and dairy produce sold in supermarkets across Europe is arriving as a result of serious human rights abuses and environmental damage in one of Latin America’s most impoverished countries, according to a new film launched in conjunction with the Ecologist Film Unit. [...]

Industrial scale soy production, particularly for genetically modified (GM) crops – some 90 per cent of Paraguay’s soy is now thought to be GM – is dependent on the frequent application of powerful pesticides and other agri-chemicals which have been linked to environmental degradation and a host of negative health impacts on people living near to soy farms.

Crop spraying has polluted important water sources in many rural regions, say campaigners, poisoning both domestic and wild animals, threatening plant life, and resulting in a number of health problems in people, including diarrhoea, vomiting, genetic malformations, headaches, loss of sight and even death.

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Tags: Chemicals, Children's Health, Environment, Food, Law, Pesticides, Policy, Pollution, Products, Toxic, Video

Michael Walkup’s farm grows

Posted on Oct 12, 2009 by Susie Collins in Blog, Home & Garden, Michael Walkup, Susie Collins

Canary Report contributor Michael Walkup, who advises us on Multiple Chemical Sensitivity disability claims, is featured in local press about his family farm.

Northwest Herald reports on Canary Report contributor Michael Walkup, attorney-at-law, who runs Heritage Farm and Gardens. Michael took his family’s land in Illinois and turned it into a small organic farm. In addition to supplying local restaurants, he also serves about 50 subscribers to his Consumer Supported Agriculture program, where his customers pay upfront to receive a box of fresh, organic produce that ripened that week.

CRYSTAL LAKE – A veritable cornucopia of McHenry County’s bounty is picked up each week in boxes at Michael Walkup’s small Crystal Lake farm on the street that bears his family’s name.

His family goes back six generations on the land, so the tomatoes are not the only heirloom that he has on his farm across from Veterans Acres Park.

For the past five years, Walkup has been feeding a small, but steadily growing, population in McHenry County – locavores, people who buy and consume produce that is grown locally. [...]

Walkup said his customers did it to know where their food comes from.

“You go to the store and you don’t know what the food has been treated with,” said Walkup, an attorney who works with people who have chemical sensitivities and who got turned onto organic farming after developing a chemical sensitivity himself.

Link to Michael’s columns on MCS and disability claims here.

Michael is an experienced disability attorney with more than 25 years experience in the disability law field. In 2001, he became disabled due to Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS). He now provides a service to advise clients with potential disability claims who have MCS, CFS and/or FMS. As these programs and law are usually federal, he is able to practice in all 50 states and, therefore, represent clients regardless of location.

Michael is a long time Sustaining Member of the National Organization for Social Security Claimants’ Representatives, the only national body for disability representatives. He is also certified as a Federal Trial Lawyer and is admitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veteran’s Claims.

Michael would welcome the opportunity to possibly help with disability claims. For more information, visit his website MCS Legal Help at walkuplaw.com. Contact info: email MJWalkup@Amertech.net or call 866-880-4878.

~~~

Editor’s note: This post was revised on 10/13, correcting the term Consumer Supported Agriculture, which I had mistakenly written as Community Supported Agriculture.

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Tags: Children's Health, Environmental Health, Food, Healthy Living, MCS, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Nontoxic, Video