EAT THE WEEDS

 

Purslane growing through holes in the black plastic ground cover, in my rock garden.  This took one month to grow 2 feet across.

Eating the weeds 
might be the best alternative to being force-fed corn and other by-products that are already genetically modified. Large corporations would like to make genetically manipulated corn, soy and wheat so that it will be immune to ever more toxic herbicidal chemicals. The goal is to try to kill weeds that compete with domestic grains. The genetically modified grains would supposedly be able to withstand being sprayed with stronger chemicals. Meanwhile the weeds seem to adjust and become ever more immune to the toxins.  

The exponential volume of grains produced, will of course,  also contain their portion of these poisons being  produced for farm animal and human  consumption. These increased toxins will also be hidden in hundreds of processed foods appearing under names hard to recognize. We are being told there is no harm in eating these products.

Ironically, some of the weeds that would supposedly be overwhelmed by poisons that have so far failed to be killed by previous herbicides, are much more high in nutrients than the grain products that would survive being sprayed with toxins. (Info from Just Label It. See previous post.)

PURSLANE- Portulaca oleracea is a very nutritious and edible weed.

Purslane is a  low growing succulent plant that grows wild. It can be either an annual or biennial. It has fleshy decumbent stems, leaves that are opposite, spatulate and sessile with a slightly pinkish tinge. There are different varieties, some with leaves that are very small, and others that are quite large, with varying amounts of red in the stems.The plant bears yellow flowers in groups of two or three to eight, appearing in late summer, and soon replaced by seeds.

Purslane is widely distributed from Greece to Mainland China, and has been introduced elsewhere, growing all over the USA. Asian and European countries do not all  have ready access to the vitamin and mineral supplements that we have in the USA and Canada, but many people in these countries can meet their need for Vitamin A,  C, iron and potassium as well as some other minerals, by eating Purslane.

Purslane contains about 700 mg per 100 grams of Vitamin C and about 75% of the daily needs for those minerals, about equivalent to that found in cooked Spinach. It also supplies other minerals. 

When made into a tea, Purslane is good  for all respiratory disorders and skin afflictions. Boil 2 cups of water, pour over the herb and steep for 30 minutes. Drink 1 cup of tea twice daily. (From John Heinerman’s Encyclopedia of Healing Herbs and Spices.)

My mother fed Purslane to our family as a pot herb when I was a child, in Michigan, and it grows in Colorado as a back yard garden or lawn weed, edible,  if you avoid poisoning your lawn. Purslane is a nice addition to salads, adding a different texture as well as nutrients. 

I do not know exactly which weeds are targeted by the companies promoting herbicides to farmers. I only know of some of the widely available edible weeds that might be a better choice for the table, than the vegetables being grown for us and modified in ways that do not select for improved nutrition.  


Writing and images are the Copyright © of Ruth Zachary.

PROPOSED TOXIC WEED KILLER’S HEALTH RISKS

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Crabgrass- Are the Poisons Enough to Kill the Weeds?

A Warning posted on June 11, 2014 by Just Label It, and written by Mary Ellen Kustin (EWG) announced the EPA was poised to approve  Dow Chemical’s bid to market a new toxic weed killer. The agency had failed to consider the weed killer’s danger to children’s health, as the federal law requires, it said.

The new toxic herbicide would be marketed to farmers to spray on fields of corn and soybeans that have been planted with recently developed genetically engineered varieties built to withstand the spraying. The spraying could be used indiscriminately. 

Just think of how many (hundreds ) of processed foods contain elements of corn and soybeans!

It is now up to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to  allow the new GE corn and soybean crops to be sold without regulation on the open market, in which case, the EPA will follow suit and approve the weed killer created to be used on those crops.

EPA is accepting public comments through June 30, 2014 on their pending decision to approve the weed killer. They could make their final decision anytime after the comment period closes.

The Just Label It group, insists that consumers have the right to know what is in the foods they buy in the open market, and advocates full disclosure of Genetically Modified Organisms, as well as the toxins used in producing such products.

 The Just Label It group claims the EPA failed to fully assess the serious health risks of a new herbicide formulation that, if approved, would lead to the largest increase in use of a known toxic weed killer in decades. The group also says EPA’s assessment omitted the possibility of inhaling 2,4-D – even though that’s one of the primary routes of exposure for people. EPA also disregarded the immune and reproductive toxicity of 2,4-D and overlooked potential links to Parkinson’s and cancer.

So, WHY ask for approval of a three-fold increase in use of a toxic herbicide that’s been linked to cancer, Parkinson’s, reproductive problems and immune system failure?

Because the last toxic herbicide designed to work with genetically engineered plants stopped working, is the Justification.

How many increases in toxic chemicals will be needed to keep up with the ability of weeds and insects adapt  to the poisons and to resist them?  And you want to eat foods that are altered to tolerate toxins that people will unknowingly end up eating?

Dow AgroSciences (a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Company) has asked EPA to rubber-stamp its application for widespread distribution of Enlist^® Duo herbicide, a mixture of 2,4-D and glyphosate, the main herbicide found in Monsanto’s best-selling RoundUp^® weed killer.

• EWG’s analysis of EPA’s recent risk assessment for 2,4-D and Enlist^® Duo finds that the agency did not take steps to protect children’s health, as required by the Food Quality Protection Act.  (• Environmental Working Group, www.ewg.org.)

EPA is accepting public comments through June 30, 2014 on their pending decision to approve the weed killer. And they could make their final decision anytime after the comment period closes.

 

Sweet Corn.            Do we want the corn enough to risk the toxins?            Virtually all corn is genetically modified.

Dow is hoping to market Enlist to corn and soybean farmers for whom Monsanto’s RoundUp no longer works because the weeds in their fields have become resistant to it. USDA estimates that more than 60 million acres of farmland is infested by weeds that have proved Monsanto’s scientists wrong about GE crops requiring fewer weed-killers.

If Enlist Duo is approved, farmers would use it on varieties of corn and soybeans that Dow has genetically engineered to survive blasts of 2,4-D.  

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the approval would lead to between a three- and whopping seven-fold increase in today’s use of 2,4-D on crops by 2020.

In the rise and fall of Monsanto’s RoundUp and “RoundUp Ready” crops, we’ve watched a “miracle” weed killer designed to work with specially genetically engineered crops lead, first, to the acceleration of herbicide-resistant “superweeds” and, ultimately, application of even more herbicides.

USDA reports that some weeds are already growing resistant to 2, 4-D, which has been used for decades but at nowhere near the amounts under consideration by EPA. 

Even though Dow’s Enlist^® Duo is even more toxic than Monsanto’s RoundUp,  the EPA’s analysis is that they:
            Failed to fully account for the risk to children;
            Disregarded endocrine toxicity and immunotoxicity findings from animal    studies.
            Ignored 2,4-D inhalation, one of the primary routes of pesticide exposure for  
                  communities in the   vicinity of sprayed fields; and
            Overlooked serious impacts on wildlife, including endangered species and   honeybees.

The science is clear: allowing Enlist Duo into the marketplace would be a disaster to people’s health – especially to children close to fields where the toxic weed killer would be applied – and would keep us on the path to even more toxic weed killers in the future. 

Click here to sign a petition demanding that the EPA deny Dow Chemical Company's application to use a combination of glyphosate and 2,4-D on GE crops.

- See more at: http://justlabelit.org/epa-disregards-toxic-weed-killers-risks-to-children/#sthash.vWJMsuww.dpuf

Note: Written Materials were gathered from a Just Label It Petition.

Images were modified  from a Better Homes and Gardens  Garden Book, 1968 .

MOUTHWASH MAELSTROM

Salad Bits. Photograph                                    © by Ruth Zachary

This blog follows on the heels of a problem with plastic microbeads in tooth paste- see the previous post.Tooth paste isn’t the only dental hygiene product we must research to prove it is safe. Mouthwash companies urge you to buy more and to use more of their products.

It turns out that our saliva produces enzymes that eventually end up in the bloodstream, and these enzymes are part of the body chemistry that causes the heart to beat regularly. Mouthwash left in the mouth, throat, and even swallowed can disrupt these important enzymes for hours afterward. How can we be informed enough to protect ourselves?

Use of mouthwash once a day is enough, Dr. Oz said in early May. Once the mouth is thoroughly washed to kill the bacteria causing plaque, the chemicals should be spit out, and one might want to also rinse the residue out with water.

But do we really want to dump yet another chemical or another medicine down the drain, to be recycled through a local waste water treatment plant? How do we avoid contaminating our environment and even our drinking water, since some waste water is not completely filtered, but ends up in reservoirs?. What is the answer?

A faucet filter has been used in my kitchen since November of 2013, after I developed a fourth auto-immune disorder. Even still, I know relatively little about how effective such filters are in removing chemicals from drinking water. 

Even my local health food store sells food in questionable plastic containers.

It is seriously disappointing that the very products we use to be healthy, are ones we cannot rely on not to poison us. Manufacturers certainly should be held accountable in this.


Writing and photos are the Copyright © of Ruth Zachary.

TOXIC TOOTHPASTE?

Cauliflower and Friends. Photograph                                                                 © by Ruth Zachary

This week on the News, (Television)  we were warned that some toothpastes contain micro beads of plastic, put into tooth paste to help clean teeth, with the disclaimer that the beads do not impact your health.  Tests done in the Denver area show the beads are made of the kind of toxic plastic that consumers have been trying to avoid, because they do harm the body. Not only do these plastics harm the user of these products, but then the consumer spits out the toothpaste and the micro beads are discharged into the waste water network.

Water that comes from rainwater and natural sources is filtered, city officials say. Filtering can remove a substantial amount of these plastic contaminants.

However, wastewater from treatment plants is mixed into the water supply of reservoirs and that water is not filtered for chemical problems. That source of water is the most likely place where the plastic micro beads end up. Many of us who live downstream, in the plains areas may be relying on drinking water that may include the micro beads and the chemicals leaching out of them, which end up in the water.

It is not necessary for the plastic micro beads to be in these dental products in the first place. As consumers we can look for products that do not contain the plastic beads, and we can lobby against companies that continue to use them. Some states have required Dental products to be free of these contaminants. 


Writing and images on this blog are the Copyright © of Ruth Zachary.