by admin on November 14, 2011
Gluten intolerance and celiac disease get a lot of press, but, what are these maladies and what are their symptoms? Celiac disease (which is also called celiac sprue) and gluten intolerance are not the same. They are successfully treated with the same diet, and both are caused by gluten intake, which can lead to confusion.
With celiac disease, the body is unable to tolerate certain proteins present in wheat, barley and rye and to a much lesser degree in oats. These proteins cause a sufferer’s body to have an autoimmune response, triggering the immune system to attack healthy tissue in the intestines. These reactions cause inflammation and degradation of the villi, which are small projections in the intestines that help absorb nutrition. Often, people suffering from one autoimmune disorder will unfortunately be found to have more than one. As a result prudent doctors will frequently choose to test people having diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis or fibromyalgia for Celiac, as well. Celiac disease causes the villi to flatten and the body to become challenged to absorb enough nutrition from foods. Symptoms of Celiac include anemia, short stature and lactose intolerance. Read More >>
by admin on November 1, 2011
The universal appeal of chocolate has turned what was a luxury into an industrial commodity, as such processors, to gain market share, have applied severe pressure on the growers. This pressure has resulted a heavy environmental and human cost that many people are not aware of.
Originally growing in the shade of tropical forests it now comes from vast cocoa plantations fully exposed to the sun. Cacao grown in these monoculture environments creates problems with pests and disease, and so requires large amounts of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers. Run-off from these open-fields causes ground water pollution and reduces soil fertility while negatively impacting the workers health.
Often the laborers are young children working in terrible conditions essentially in West Africa where a large part of the world cocoa originates.
It is not surprising that most of the people who harvest the cacao have never tasted the finished product made from the beans they produce. Many who grow and harvest cocoa receive little, if any, wages, and live in substandard conditions. In Ivory Coast, in West Africa, there is a persistent problem with child labor and child slavery. A quick on line search will return ample evidence of the regrettable practices, the following link is an example http://www.laborrights.org/stop-child-labor/cocoa-campaign Read More >>
by admin on July 19, 2011
by admin on July 19, 2011
I was raised in the fifties between France and Tunisia where my parents had a wheat farm 25 miles west of Tunis. In this bucolic setting I learned that some of the best things in life are simple and pure.
Our bread was baked at the farm in a wood fired oven. The flour, ground by the workers wives, came from the wheat stored in giant concrete bins holding the year’s crop. It was milled with a rudimentary mill, composed of two 10 inch diameter gray grinding stones. The bottom one, fixed, had a vertical metal shaft in the middle. The top one had an oversized center hole to accommodate the shaft and allow the grains to be fed between the grinding stones.
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