I chop a few tomatoes into small pieces, add about half a chopped onion, and add one finely chopped jalapeno pepper. Can’t get much simpler than that! Still, it totally satisfies me.
At one time I didn’t know much about Mexican food. My mother never cooked it. NEVER.
Then when I was about 23 years old, I had a Hispanic boyfriend. I say Hispanic instead of Mexican because he’s never been in Mexico. Maybe today the preferred term is Latino. I don’t know… Hispanic always sounded okay to me. Anyhow, he took me home to meet his parents… they were living in Chowchilla, California at the time. His mother made dinner … and I sat down to a meal like nothing I’d ever had before.
I was doing okay with the food - all vegetarian, my favorite! She gave me homemade pinto beans and fried potatoes on a paper plate, and then plunked down a flour tortilla right next to that. Oh my goodness! I had NO IDEA what to do with the tortilla! I had to sit there watching my boyfriend eat so I’d get an idea of what to do with it. He tore it into tiny pieces and used it to pick up the other foods!
That was my introduction to Mexican food. A few months later I MARRIED this guy, and actually LEARNED to cook Mexican foods. Then in 1985 we divorced… but I still love the Mexican food!
Have you ever noticed how much better home cooked pinto beans are? I mean, better than the ones coming out of a can? WOW, the taste differential is astounding!
I like to cook beans about once a week… usually black beans, pinto beans, or lentils. I often combine the lentils with rice. This is my burrito filling. At this point I’ve weaned myself off of cheese so all I put into my burritos is the beans, salsa, and sometimes potatoes, rice, or lettuce.
I also have the habit of warming my tortillas just like my mother-in-law did… directly over the flame of a gas burner. I’d be so lost with an electric stove! My now-boyfriend insists on frying his tortillas in a frying pan with butter. Not for me! I toss mine directly on a fully-lit burner and count to ten, then turn them over, count to ten, wait for the bubbles to emerge, and that’s it. No butter, no extra calories.. no mess.
Can you tell I love burritos? I’ve been eating them a lot lately… often alongside a mug full of my amazing and delicious vegetable soup. (The soup will have to be another posting… some other day.)
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Also: Happy First Day of Spring… Joyous Spring Equinox… and for the Persians and Baha’is: Happy Naw Ruz!
I was surprised when I looked at my stats today and saw that this site now gets about 150 visits daily. Now I feel a need to make the site more useful - and I’m going to do that by installing a section for linking to current news articles.
I come across health and food news daily but normally I add those links to my Delicious account. Instead, I’ll post them here so that site visitors will find a resource for learning about the latest news in food, natural healing and health.
This month we’re busy getting our garden soil ready. We’re planning a big garden - flowers, herbs and vegetables. That’s keeping me busy.
How about you? With the world economy in shambles are you planning to grow your own food this year? Will you be canning? Are you storing food just in case the stores no longer can supply our needs? Do you even believe that’s possible?
You know me… I believe in preparing for the future, and even though it seems unnecessary now, food storage is an important part of my life.
Dr. Rima E. Laibow, MD is a a spokesperson for the protection of natural health freedom. She’s also a doctor who has practiced natural, drug-free medicine for more than 35 years.
In these videos Dr. Laibow gives a speech explaining what Codex Alimentarius is and how it threatens our natural health freedom rights. This speech was given in 2005 at the annual conference of the National Association of Nutrition Professionals (NANP).
If you don’t have time or means to watch these videos, you can read my notes and supplementary research at the end of this blog posting.
Most of what follows are my notes taken directly from the videos above. I added a small bit of my own research with website links. In particular I wanted to know the current status of this issue. (It is ongoing at this time.) I also looked for Codex Alimentarius on Snopes.Com - it isn’t there, so I’m guessing this information hasn’t been deemed a hoax.
After WWII at the Neurenburg Tribunals twenty-four executives and board members of a large German company called IG Farbin were sentenced to prison. IG Farbin produced steel, munitions, poisonous gases, pharmaceuticals (including Bayer) and chemicals. The president of that company, Fritz derMeer, was convicted on July 29, 1948. When released he went to friends in the UN and suggested they take over food in order to have power over everyone.
In 1963 they created a trade commission called the Codex Alimentarius Commission. It isn’t a governmental organization; it is about turning a profit. Their goal is to have total global implementation of Codex Alimentarius by 12/31/09. Codex is a huge bureaucracy now and has created over 4000 guidelines, standards and regulations over every type of food imaginable. Pharmaceuticals are not included in these guidelines. Herbs, vitamins and minerals are.
Their standards have no legal weight, but here’s how they got into power anyhow.
First a bit of history: The Austro-Hungarian government decided they needed rules for courts to use in cases regarding food. Around 1893 they put these regulations in place and called them Codex Alimentarius. It lasted until the country ended at the end of WWI.
Fritz derMeer apparently liked the idea of rules so he started promoting his food rules using the same name. His rules were voluntary guidelines. The Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) was formed in 1963 and is supervised and funded by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), at the request of the United Nations.
The Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements were presented to the Codex Alimentarius Commission for ratification on July 4, 2005. They were approved by consensus and are now mandatory over all countries that are members of the World Health Organization. They expect all members of the World Trade Organization to “harmonize” with Codex Alimentarius rules.
If two countries are involved in a dispute resolution process ruled over by the World Trade Organization, if one country is Codex compliant and the other isn’t, the Codex compliant country automatically wins no matter what the facts of the case are. Therefore every county in the world wants to “harmonize” with Codex Alimentarius rules.
Codex, however, doesn’t serve health. It serves pharmaceutical, chemical, biotechnical, agricultural, and medical industry interests.
Though Codex rules are said to be “voluntary” they are not actually… countries are coerced by the WTO dispute resolution process into following them. However after 12/31/09 they will be totally mandatory - at least that is the plan.
Here in the USA in 1994 the Dietary Suppliments Health and Education Act (DSHEA) classified nutrients and herbs as foods. By this act and common law, anything not forbidden is permitted, and we’re allowed to have as much of these things as we want. Codex, however, is not ruled by common law - it is ruled by Napoleonic Code law which states that anything not permitted is forbidden.
In 1994 Codex declared that nutrients are toxins.
Via toxicology risk assessment animals are given these ‘toxins’ until they die to figure out how much would be poisonous for human beings. It is expected that eighteen of these ‘nutrient toxins’ will be approved, one of them being fluoride (a real poison! Fluoride makes people complacent so it was first used in WWII concentration camps to control people there. Read more about fluoride here: Fluoride Poisoning.)
There have been multiple attempts to destroy the USA legislation, DSHEA. The Coalition to Preserve DSHEA website states “Congress may soon consider new legislation that would trump DSHEA and put consumer access to dietary supplements at risk.” This watch-dog organization is working to preserve our health freedoms.
Codex would make most of the food supplements we use illegal.
Codex would force every dairy cow on the planet to be treated with Monsanto’s recombinant bovine growth hormone.
Codex would force every food animal on the planet to be treated with sub-clinical antibiotics and growth hormones. (including fish and fowl)
Codex mandates that all food be irradiated unless eaten locally and raw, including organic food.
Codex organic standards allow farmers to use growth hormones and antibiotics on animals.
Codex sets amazingly high limits for dangerous industrial chemicals.
You can do a Google search for Codex Alimentarius and look through their pages to find information on toxic chemicals allowed in our foods including pesticides.
Codex has brought back seven toxic chemicals that over a hundred countries have banned. And any country that is Codex compliant will not be able to refuse imports of foods with these toxins.
According to Dr. Laibow, the World Health Organization’s own statistics project that if Codex’s vitamin/mineral standard becomes mandatory, over three billion people will die, one billion from simple starvation. These people are considered expendable because starving people can’t contribute much to the world economy. The other two billion will die from under-nutrition and health conditions that can’t be treated properly without the right foods and supplements. She says those who will live are the wealthy and powerful who can afford clean food sources. The rest of us are apparently to be intended victims of toxic foods. Even if we eat natural, homegrown foods at home, children in public schools are eating government-supplied foods for school lunches.
This doctor has been working with a team of lawyers to create a strategy to fight Codex in court.
There’s no doubt that most of us love to use sweeteners in some of our foods. I’ll admit, I love cookies, candies and ice cream. I wish I didn’t! The ice cream is something I consider especially bad for me so I go very easy on it.
Recently I did an extensive overview of various types of sweeteners that people put in their foods. I tried to include all sweeteners but I know there are a few I have yet to add to the project which I posted at Natural and Artificial Sweeteners. I hope you have time to take a look at it. The report includes illustrations and videos that I believe are worth considering.
What we put into our bodies is one of the most important issues we’ll ever deal with. I’ve used chemical sweeteners in the past and am sorry I did. Now I use natural sweeteners. My favorite is maple syrup!
Yes, I’ve been poking around the Internet this week, and last, ever since I lost my job at this town’s finest pizzaria… the Pizza House. Yay! No more having to work with… oh, never mind. I’m just so happy not to have to work outside my home for a while, I could sing and dance. More about that later.
I’m getting back into the mindset of a blogger and work at home person. I’m re-arranging my life to make Internet income acquisition more feasible. I’m reacquainting myself with my blogs… blowing the dust off, and making them all homey and cozy again.
For the last couple of months I was not only working hard at the pizza place - I was also working toward achieving an online goal. I wanted to be part of the Giant Squid program at Squidoo.Com. (See my lensography.)This may sound strange to many of you, but I love the Squidness of it all.. it shows a complete lack of taking ourselves too seriously. After all, if we’re not online for fun and profit - what are we here for? Okay, so maybe some of you could do without the profit part… but seriously, I can’t. This will have to be part of my required income from here on in, and Squidoo is a place where you can easily earn money online.
Let me be a bit honest with you about my situation.
I’ve given most of my life over to the care of my children, in that I took care of them for more than thirty years. My oldest is 35 this year. My youngest just turned 18 and moved out in July. So for the first time in my adult life - ever since I was twenty (when I had my first baby) - I am suddenly childless, in that none of them live with me. YES, I get to experience “Empty Nest Syndrome” first hand. So far it hasn’t been difficult.
My main income for the last year and a half was via working at the local pizza restaurant. I live in a VERY small town with few job opportunities. I felt lucky to have the job even though it was just part time.
Early in September the woman I worked with, the morning supervisor, suddenly quit her job after being there twelve years. She’d been offered a better job with benefits at the grocery store. I got promoted into the morning supervisor job on September 8. Unfortunately the evening supervisor who had worked there on and off for more than fifteen years didn’t like me. At the time I got promoted she was plotting and planning to get me out of there. I know that because later I ran into someone who told me the other supervisor offered her MY job at about the same time I got the promotion. This woman apparently was badmouthing me to the business owner and undermining me in every way she could. Eventually she got her way and only two weeks after getting promoted, I got fired for no particular reason other than that the other supervisor didn’t want to work with me! Wow, that was a big surprise to me because I was a very good employee. For some reason that old woman (age 69) is very manipulative and always gets her way with the business owner, who seems to be a pushover, letting her run the show even if it is unfair to others involved. I’m not the first person I’ve seen affected by this phenomena.
Anyhow, to my surprise, my first emotions after being fired were relief as if a burden had been lifted from me, and then joy. Suddenly I realized how happy I was that I wouldn’t have to work in that environment anymore, and especially not around that old woman plus her progeny who also work there due to the nepotism that’s so much a part of that business. I blinked my eyes a couple of times, stretched, smiled, and started feeling like I was doing internal happy dances. Like I really NEEDED to be treated so badly? How much money is it worth to go to work daily in a hostile environment… especially one where I have to work with meats even though I’m a vegetarian?
Fortunately I’d saved some money, and am earning a bit online. Since as I said, there are few job opportunities here, I’m not expecting to get another job right away. Of course, you never know and I’m not going to turn any jobs down… but for now I’m exceedingly happy to work at home as a blogger, Squidooer, and ad salesperson. I’m not earning a living wage at this time but it might get better if I keep trying. Right?
The good news is that my expenses are few. I’ve become an expert at practicing economy. My rent is super low - I live in a small backwoods cabin (some might call it a shack)… three bedrooms, but definitely not upscale. I drive an old but economical car so there are no car payments and gas… well, let’s not mention that right now. I just won’t drive it much. I plan to save on gas and ride a bicycle. Plus I walk a lot… often to the post office and back in the late afternoon. Two miles… good exercise. And I’m stocked up on food and continually adding more staples to my collection. There are very few things I really NEED to buy. I CAN DO THIS!!! I mean, I can learn to live on a much lower income.
I know that a lot of you out there in the rest of civilization are going through financial difficulties right now. I know with the bank failure, lots of people have lost retirement funds and home equity. My heart is with you as I feel the pains of so many who aren’t used to having to cut back, suddenly finding the rug pulled out from beneath them. And I guess what I’d like to do now is share some of my techniques for living economically. I feel like I’m pretty close to the bottom of the income scale, yet living comfortably and happily because of the choices I’ve made in the past. Maybe I have some ideas I can share with others - especially the idea that we can stay cheerful and happy in hard economic times.
Enough for now. If you’ve read this far, you must be a saint, and I love you! Thanks for stopping by. I’ll be back.
Hi, my name is Linda. This is my personal home and hearth journal.
I am a self-trained herbal practitioner. I became a vegetarian when I was a teenager in the 1960s. I was a San Francisco Bay Area hippie in the 60s and early 70s. Then I became a mom - the most important job I've ever had.
Now I live in a very small mountain community. The nearest fast food restaurant is more than forty miles during summer, and more than seventy miles in winter when the pass is snowed under. I've never owned a cell phone, but I talked on one once.
I've started using FriendFeed to keep in touch with people. It is a wonderful site where you can combine all your feeds and connect with friends. You're invited to join me there. For more information - see How To Use FriendFeed.
