This is just scary.  With the problems in China with infants hospitalized because of melamine in baby formula, the FDA said that there was no safe level of Melamine.  That is until they tested the formulas here in the US.  Now, they’re saying it’s safe under 1 ppm. 

 So, they’re allowing us to poison our most precious asset, our helpless, dependent infants.  That’s really comforting, isn’t it?  Sometimes I wonder what these people are thinking in saying that stuff is safe with no scientific evidence to support their statements?  I mean they’re doing the same with BPA in bottles… instead the manufacturers have removed BPA from the bottles on their own. 

It’s possible the backlash is going to get the formula manufacturers to pay more attention to their formula.  I would certainly hope so.

So, apparently PETA is trying to convince Ben & Jerry’s to make their ice cream out of breast milk.  Umm I just have to say it… eww!

Don’t get me wrong, I see nothing wrong with breastfeeding your kids.  The thought of eating something made out of someone else’s breastmilk just does not appeal to me.  I had enough trouble dealing with my own when I was nursing my kids.  Plus, they’d have to have a lot more women pumping breastmilk than they do cows to keep up with the amount of milk they go through.  People just don’t produce the amount of milk that cows do. 

Both La Leche League (the breastfeeding advocacy group) and Ben & Jerry’s are against the suggestion, so I don’t see it happening.  They’d have to label the ice cream as made from breast milk, and I don’t see many people buying it.  Heck, some people have trouble buying mother’s milk soap.

 You know, I noticed the price of food and gas going up, and assumed that the price of food was going up because of the cost to ship it.  I mean if they have to pay more for the diesel, then at some point, they’ll have to pass the cost on to the consumer.  Right?

 Then I started reading about riots in Haiti, and that China and other governments aren’t exporting as much rice because of the increases in food costs.  But they’re also not producing as much rice.  A lot of other countries aren’t producing as much food.  It’s not on purpose, there’s a drought in Australia, Russia isn’t growing as much wheat…

So what does the the US government think is the most important thing to do?  Yea, you got it, put more effort into growing corn for ethanol. Let’s ignore for the moment all of the problems with ethanol, and look at the rest of the issues with this scenario.

 I understand their reasoning that we need to get off our oil dependence.  But, if we are going through a food shortage, is this how we need to do it? 

I know that we’re short on wheat, not corn.  However, farmers are actually planting corn because this is the crop that’s going to get the most cash.  So then we’re short on the “food” crops since the corn isn’t going to be used for food. Yet we have a food shortage.

 Our government is very short-sighted, though they can deny it all they wish.  Anyone with brains knows they are worsening the food crisis on this planet.  Yet they say that it’s more important to reduce our dependancy on oil.  What they need to do is make laws to fix the loopholes they left in the mpg requirements.  Auto makers make trucks because they’re not required to get as high a mpg on these vehicles.  That’s the whole point behind the big SUV’s too.  Our own short sightedness has brought us to this pass.  Unfortunately, this same short-sightedness is helping starve others.

Recently, a co-worker asked me if I wanted a starter for Amish Friendship Bread.   Since I have such fond memories of the candle scent, I said yes.  That was before I realized what was involved in this tradition.  When it comes time to make the bread 3 days from now, the directions say to put 1 cup of the starter in 4 different ziploc bags and mark them with the date.  Then I am to give the starter to friends with a set of directions on how to make the bread.  That sounds great in theory.  I’m just not sure I know enough people here in OK that would like the friendship bread starter. 

What am I supposed to do then?  Hand it out on the street? 

I can see that one now.  LOL! I suspect I would get some very strange looks when I tried to hand a bag of starter out. 

I saw some given away on FreeCycle.  I could do that.  Explain that I don’t know enough people in the area, and am not sure who I should give it to. 

Or I can make one batch, keep a bag of the mix for myself, then dump the rest down the drain. 

 After all, who would know what I did with it?  I’m sure Amari isn’t going to go looking in my trash. 

Or, since a batch makes 2 loaves of bread, I can figure out what would be left after taking out the 4 cups, double that amount and make 4 loaves of bread to bring some to work.  Then I can leave some starter on the desk with the bread, with the directions. 

Or I can make a single batch, and leave 3 bags of starter on the desk.  Then I can make some for the family in another 10 days.

 I still think the office is going to get overrun with Amish Friendship Bread starter. 

I have a 2 year old daughter.  I’ll admit that most of the time it’s easier to give in and give her whatever she wants.  Being a “normal, picky” 2 year old, most of the time what she wants to eat is cereal and chocolate milk.

 That’s at 2.  If I keep giving her what she wants, then she’ll get used to eating like my neice does.  As my neice lives with her great-grandparents, she has learned that she can throw a fit and get what she wants.  They always have candy, sugar cereals (no better than candy) and juice around.  She has been diagnosed with ADD and takes medication for it. 

At 8:30 on Halloween, I told my neice and my daughter that they had had enough candy.  My sneaky 2 year old had a sucker in her jacket pocket, but it was my neice that I had to watch.  She got mad, especially when I confiscated the candy necklace and wouldn’t let her have the candy bracelet she had gotten. 

When we went to drop her off, I insisted on carrying the candy inside and handing it to her grandfather myself.  We went inside for a few minutes and she started trying to get into her candy.  My husband and I both ended up enforcing the no more candy rule.  The grandparents were saying no more, but my neice wasn’t listening.

 Compare that to this weekend.  It being Thanksgiving, I had sweets around — notably Rice Krispie treats and a cookie bar that I haven’t had in years.  She did not have her ADD medication, but her behaviour was less like a hyperactive child and more like a child who needed consistancy in her discipline (she got 3 warnings then got a time out – I didn’t start the timer until she stopped the screaming).  Well and more like a child that needed to learn to play with others, she kept hogging the toys.  Then again, so did my 2 year old.

 All this not from cutting out the sugar, but from cutting out the artificial colors and flavors and keeping her away from soda.  To the end of the weekend, she was even asking me for Rice Krispies for breakfast even though I had 2 kinds of Captain Crunch. 

It may be a small experiment, but that definitely shows me that they may actually be figuring out the cause of this sudden influx of ADD and ADHD. 

 Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that some kids actually do have a problem with concentration.  From what I’ve seen though, some of it is either they have home problems on their mind (which my neice obviously does when she doesn’t see her mom very much) or too much artificial color and caffeine/soda (which my neice also has).  Yet her mom is determined that she wants to keep her on the ADD medication indefinitely, instead of stopping at 2 years like the doctor suggests.

Things that make you go hmmm… It’s so much easier to let the medication parent for us, isn’t it?

 Today I’m just going to post a cartoon from http://newstarget.com that sums up my feelings on so many things these days.