The toxins in our midst can make us sick or kill us.

The air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat ain’t what it used to be. They are brimming with toxic chemical substances like pesticides and additives to lengthen their use by date etc. Processed meat, sausages and cheese are crammed with them plus a large amount of salt added for good measure. The labelling is totally inadequate and often gives only the additive’s number. Most people wouldn’t know what they are consuming and most wouldn’t bother to find out.

Our hospital wards are full to the hilt; so are Doctor’s waiting rooms, and chemist shops are brimming with sick people picking up more chemicals that the doctor prescribed. No wonder so many people are sick, both young and old. They are saturated with chemicals and toxins, and the body just can’t cope with it. In her “infinite wisdom” and against common sense, our premier Anna Bligh, saw fit to force the population to drink fluoridated water, a number six poison and a waste product from the fertiliser and aluminium industries. We needed this on top of all the other chemicals and toxins like a hole in the head.

We are encouraged to eat organically grown vegetables, but they are not always available and how do we know for sure that they are grown organically? The Supermarkets just have to take the grower’s word for it. Some time ago my wife asked me to bring a head of cabbage from the supermarket. I spotted a shelf that had “organically grown” written on it. The cabbage was full of worm holes, a sure sign that they were grown organically, I was told. I picked one up and put it into the trolley - then I thought, hang on a minute, how did they kill the worms? Needles to say I didn’t buy the organically grown cabbage.

Cabbage is one of those vegetables which is loved by the cabbage moth, which lays hundreds of eggs on the cabbage and after they have hatched the hungry larvae would devour the plant in no time and pesticide would have to be used to stop them.

However, a friend and keen veggie grower in Maclean Northern NSW has a simple way to grow cabbage without using pesticide. He constructs a wooden frame around the cabbage patch puts fishing netting with 10 mm square holes around it – and the cabbage moth cannot get through to the cabbage and consequently he has cabbage without worm holes. Simple, you have to try it.

Another friend who had a small crop farm near Adelaide told me the following story. “My strawberries were just a week away from picking, when I noticed one morning that the leaves looked limp. I went to the DPI and told them what happened to my strawberries. The man knew what the problem was and handed me bottle containing a potent pesticide and instructed me to wear overalls, rubber boots, gloves, goggles and a mask.” ‘Don’t get any of this stuff on you,’ he said emphatically. So, I sprayed the strawberries and they “looked healthy” again the next morning.”

He continued: “My neighbour discovered that his strawberries had the same problem and asked me what I had done and I told him, and off he went to the DPI to get the poison. However, this fellow thought he was a tough Aussie bloke who didn’t need any safety gear to spray his crop. With shorts, singlet and a knapsack he walked along his strawberry row barefoot and sprayed them, but he only sprayed one row when he collapsed and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. He was in intensive care for several days, but lived to tell his tale of nearly leaving this planet. This just shows how toxic this poison was.”

A week later, my friend picked his strawberry crop and took them to the Adelaide market. After that his conscience started to bother him. After all, the strawberries had only been sprayed a week ago with this poison that nearly killed his neighbour. To make a long story short, he felt so terrible about this that he stopped growing strawberries and sold his farm. “I could not live with this,” he said. Well, not everybody is as conscientious as my friend, and of course we will never know when the fruit was sprayed before it gets to the market. I have been told that the normal withholding period between spraying and consumption is four weeks. However, as far as I am concerned it put me off buying strawberries for life. I only eat them when I grow them myself. – Werner

Following are more frightening revelations about what they put into our food; just reading about it can make you sick.

Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP) recall leaves food consumers wondering: What is this stuff?

Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP) is one of most common soy-based food "fillers" used to make literally thousands of processed food products. It's found in veggie burgers, gravy mixes, soups and many other grocery products. Last Thursday, one of the largest producers of HVP in the United States, Las Vegas-based Basic Food Flavors Inc., was the subject of an FDA consumer safety warning announcement. Salmonella had been found contaminating the company's HVP production equipment, the FDA said, and a nationwide recall was initiated that now includes products from Trader Joe's, Safeway, McCormick and many other companies. If you want to know more click here.

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My thought for today. – Werner
Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. - Ano