How Close Is Too Triclosan?!

I had a major and distressing WTF moment yesterday: I discovered triclosan is lurking in my favorite toothpaste. 

Not So Fast (The Daily Bite)

It appears I may have been wrong. News is out today that SoMil has agreed to provide big bucks to improve this site for development for non other than Wal-Mart. I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach. This will decimate our neighborhood and kill what's left of our downtown.

I certainly hope SoMil receives enough tax income from this new development to make up for the drop in property taxes that will occur in the surrounding neighborhoods since property values will suffer. It's a TID though: tax incremental district. So if they do, it won't be for awhile.

Neighborhood Disaster Averted

I'm so excited today, relieved and hopeful even. I've learned that proposed plans for a Wal-Mart in our neighborhood have been terminated. It's an incredible relief: the plans had been for a 100,000+sf store that would have drawn upwards of 30,000 car visits per day through residential neighborhoods, past two different schools and a number of churches, and the closing of a residential through street. The parcel of land is only partially vacant, so several local businesses would have been absorbed - that is: purchased, shut down, and demolished.

Image from SMCDA

The current development proposal posted on the South Milwaukee Community Development Authority website shows a creative mixed use plan of housing and small retail with parking, dressed up with trees. What a wonderful addition this would make to our South Shore community!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

A good time to remember to be grateful. I try to be mindful of that as often as possible; I feel very lucky for everyone's good health and happiness, to have found our house and moved in last year. For little things like geekMan's handiness around the house (he finally rewired & replaced the bathroom fan; it was wired together with the light, so it was always a noisy twofer). Bittersweet about the kids getting older, but..... mostly grateful on that account.

Otherwise short post. I've gotten quite out of the habit of writing. I think it fell apart in September after the death of a friend of mine. It was such a shock, and I was more bothered by it than I expected. I never felt like being alone inside my head enough to write.

Anyhoo, time moves on, as it must. And I miss being here. I'm gearing up to do a lot of canning; we have strawberries, blueberries, cranberries, tomatoes stuffed into the freezers and they need to made into something for on the shelf. I've also been playing more with yarn. No real time or desire to work with wool when the yard needs weeding. Hobbies falling prey to seasonal dictums (or would that be dicta?).

More Food Irony

Image from the FDA website.

Does anyone else see the irony of the US hosting an informational conference on food safety given our recent track record?

Are eggs on the menu? What about cheese? Sure to find some hydrolyzed vegetable protein stuck somewhere.... and I hope there's no frozen fruit for dessert.

Actually, it's going to be held in Cairo, Egypt. They're probably safe.

Oh, the Irony

Extra Aged Pleasant Ridge Reserve by Uplands Cheese in Dodgeville, Wisconsin.

Does anyone else find irony in the fact that the cheese judged Best in Show at the recent American Cheese Society competition was made from RAW milk, and yet trying to buy raw milk by my own consumer choice is illegal? I'm dumbfounded by the prohibition on raw milk sales. You would think that allowing the sale is tantamount to forcing raw milk on everyone. It's called consumer choice. I would like to exercise mine; you know, take it out for a walk now and then. To buy some raw milk.

Photo from Wisconsin Cheese Talk, sponsored by the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board.

Campaign Follies

Now that the primaries are over, the real races begin. To lighten your mood about the upcoming mud season, here's a video from CNN's Jeanne Moos showing some of the best, weirdest campaign ads out there. So far.

FDA to Ponder Barnyard Antibiotics

Finally, finally - someone is starting to understand. The FDA has decided to take a dim view of the routine use of antibiotics in farm animals, stating that "The development of resistance to these drugs, and the resulting loss of their effectiveness, poses a serious public health threat." It's about bloody time.

For years, industrial farming has incorporated the routine use of antibiotics in farm animals such as cattle (dairy and beef) and hogs. Not because they were sick, but because it made them grow fatter faster. The end result is the frightening development of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. Not to mention the exposure of people to antibiotics in meats and meat products.

Europe made the switch over a decade ago. Aren't we supposed to be a world leader....?

Read the FDA press release "FDA Issues Draft Guidance on the Judicious Use of Medically Important Antimicrobials in Food-Producing Animals" here.

Wine and Politics

Disturbing news: a bill (HR 5034) is making its way through Congress that would effectively eliminate interstate shipping of wine. Why care, you ask? Because small wineries depend on direct shipments to customers rather than wholesale distribution, and without it they are likely to fail. Wine retailers who go out of their way to find small label gems will be limited to availability through wholesalers. All of this means us as consumers will be limited to what the big wineries can pour out. Reminds me of the Wal-Mart effect and the generic-ization of consumer goods.

This bill was developed by the National Beer Wholesalers Association and is supported by the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers Association (are you sensing the theme here?) and four congressmen (initially; there are over 100 now). It is an unnecessary impingement on free commerce. It needs to be defeated. I fear it may slip through unnoticed if we the people don't speak up.

Seek out information. Google it up. Write to your congressmen; find yours here. There are people out there working to defeat this bill - there's even a FB page.

To get you started, go to Free the Grapes or Stop HR5034. Then write your congressmen. Find out if your reps are supporting it. Tell them not to.

Some Good News about Industrial Farming...?

I'm defensibly dissatisfied with large scale farming, both vegetable and animal (watch Food, Inc. and King Corn for starters). However, there may be some redemption for industrial vegetable farming: turns out increasing yields on existing lands alleviated the pressure to convert forest & prairie to agriculture. This in turn allowed for greater carbon-reducing biomass (the preserved forests) than any 'footprinting' by the farming.

I'm struggling to reconcile anything good about industrial farming with the reality of the other facets it destroys. I don't think it grants permission to other unethical aspects of the trade.

Read more at Scientific American.

Have We Forgotten That Much?

Recently I've come across some posts that claim new facets of thrift or utility. I read them only to be underwhelmed. Since when was making cut-off shorts from over-used long pants a novel idea (via Lifehacker)? The other day brought the epiphany that you could cook and freeze your own version of pre-made hot breakfast cereal (via Serious Eats).

Are we collectively losing the original instructions, or are parents unable to pass them on? (not to entirely blame the parents - many 'young folk' are not interested in anything that either does not entertain, connect to the outside world, or contain a battery).