What will you do when tubes of triple antibiotic cream is no longer as close as the pharmacy department of the nearest Wal-Mart? With a little study and preparation, you’ll make your own, of course!
I have a child with numerous allergies and sensitivities, so even now, with the commercial salves readily available, I prefer the peace of mind that comes from making my own topical remedies so that I know every single ingredient contained within.
Salves and balms are very simple and can be made in a few easy steps. They have two basic components – the base and the healing herbs.
Step 1: Create a Base for Your Salve
Plant oil (grape seed oil, coconut oil, olive oil) – these are rich in vitamin E
Petroleum Jelly – I’m not a fan – if you are going to the effort of using natural non-chemical products, you might want to reconsider a base made from petroleum.
Beeswax (not good for people with pollen allergies). This is also added to salves to harden the oils more easily. For two cups of plant based oil, use 1 1/2 ounces of beeswax. For smaller quantities of salve: one ounce of oil will need about 1/2 teaspoon of beeswax to harden the salve.
Lanolin
Honey (has the benefit of being a natural antibiotic)
Typically, for a larger quantity of salve, you will use around 1/2 to 1 cup of oil. Keep in mind that you want to use enough oil to cover 1 inch above the herbs while they are heated. Once you have chosen your base, then it is time to select your “herbal medicinal” ingredient or ingredients. See below for a directory of some commonly found medicinal herbs.
Step 2: Add the Healing Herbs or Essential Oils
If you have essential oils available you can skip the step for extracting the medicinal qualities from the herbs. Otherwise, use this process to extract the healing properties of the herbs.
On a double broiler, stir the 1 cup of plant-based oil and herb or herbs on low heat for one to two hours, stirring often. Ensure the oil is covering the herb blend. The longer you cook the herbs in the oil, the stronger your mixture will be.
Alternatively, use your crockpot on a low setting to extract the medicinal qualities from the herbs. In the crock pot the process takes 3-5 hours but the mixture does not have to be tended and stirred. It takes longer to extract the healing qualities from roots than from leaves.
Using cheese cloth or an extremely fine mesh colander, strain the herbs from the oil. Place the oil back into the top of the double boiler and add beeswax to harden the salve. Stir until completely melted.
Check to see if the balm has hardened sufficiently by dipping out a small amount in a spoon and allowing it to cool. If it is still runny, you need to add more beeswax.
Pour the mixture into a sterile container and add essential oils or vitamin E oil (if desired), stirring well. Store in a cool dry place.
Always test a skin patch before wide use, and then, if there is no reaction, most salves can be used as needed several times per day.
Choosing the Best Healing Herbs or Essential Oils
Using the directions provided above, many different salves can be created. Try some of the following combinations or refer to the 30 Most Popular Herbs for Natural Medicine for more examples of herbs that can be used medicinally.
Aloe Vera and Vitamin E – great for burns and sunburns
Calendula and Comfrey – soothing for rashes, burns and minor irritation
Aloe Vera and Vitamin E – great for burns and sunburns
Goldenseal, Comfrey and Echinacea – antibacterial
Black Walnut, Burdock, Echinacea and Tea Tree Oil – fungal infections
Chamomile and comfrey – soothing for rashes and insect bites
White willow bark – mild analgesic
One day you may be looking to nature for your pharmaceuticals. As well, consider planting the herbs (many of these are perennial) and/or locating places in your area where they grow wild. Do some research – find out what bounty nature provides in your locale and find out how the items can be used in your natural medicine cabinet.
Tess was raised by a “prepper” in Houston TX, where hurricanes would batter and bruise the coast every few years. After graduating from college, she joined the Red Cross in 1999 where she regularly came into contact with people caught off guard and ill-equipped to handle the unexpected. Now Tess believes preparing for disasters is only natural, and she hopes that we can all learn, share and find insight together.
We are being poisoned. This mass public poisoning has been going on for over a century, and it has been gradually increasing. You and those you care about are being harmed almost continuously. We are being abused with multiple poisons in small doses on purpose.
The more of us that become aware of some of the most common ways this is happening, the better chance we have of reducing or ending exposure to at least some of the poisons.
Chlorine
This highly toxic chemical warfare agent has been added to public water supplies since about 1910 as a disinfectant. The now common health problems of circulatory disease and cancer became widespread only after the masses started being chlorinated regularly. Drinking it, bathing in it, breathing it and soaking it up in our showers, and consuming it in most food and beverage products made with city water, makes chlorine one of the most common public poisons.
Fluoride
The fluoride added to municipal water and dental care products is not really good for your teeth. It is a cancer causing, apathy inducing, intelligence reducing chemical, a waste product of aluminum and phosphate manufacturing. It was accumulating at production plants in the 1940s and ruining local ground water.
The industry first tried to get rid of excess stocks of fluoride by marketing it as rat poison, but not enough was sold. Then in the 1950s they concocted the scheme of convincing the American Dental Association to recommend it be added to public water supplies and oral care products to harden teeth. In the long run, it actually makes teeth brittle and mottled, while diminishing people’s IQ, minimizing active interests and shortening lives.
Aluminum
Aluminum has long been used in cookware and food service material. As people learned of its toxicity, they started abandoning aluminum pans and avoiding heating food wrapped in foil.
Extremely fine particles of it are the main component of the “chemtrail” sprays disseminated over virtually all areas in North America under the rationale of “geo-engineering” to counter “global warming”. Since the concern about global warming from carbon emissions due to human activity is fraudulently promoted to expand control of the population, this widespread chemical spraying is really being done for other reasons, from weather manipulation to public poisoning. The bizarre streaks often sprayed in the sky by aircraft are not normal jet contrails.
Aluminum is another neurotoxin that reduces intelligence and memory. It is considered a major contributor to early senility and dementia.
Mercury & Vaccinations
For the millions of us that received “silver” dental fillings, long term mercury contamination is likely. That highly toxic heavy metal was an ingredient in the amalgam. Mercury is also used in the thimerosal preservative in most vaccines, including those given to children, even infants.
Mercury is another neurotoxin and is blamed for the incredible rise in the numbers of autistic children, many of whom are radically changed within a few days of vaccination.
Vaccinations and flu shots do not really protect us from infections. Rather they are seriously harmful, especially to the infants that receive an overwhelming mixed vaccination cocktail. Further, vaccines are sometimes contaminated with rogue viruses, and are a debilitating stress to the human immune system.
Pharma Drugs
The approval of pharmaceutical medicines by a government agency does not mean that they are safe to take. Many of them have terrible side effects, often blocking biological systems and fostering long-term illness. Then additional drugs are prescribed. Many of the routine medications today are psychotropic, further reducing intelligence and enthusiasm.
Radioactive Fallout
Radioactivity emanating from the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster, as well as from leaks at other nuke facilities, the depleted uranium ammunition used by the military, the radioactive metals such as barium and thorium in the chemtrail sprays, and the lingering particles from the nuclear testing of the 1950s and 1960s, is another major contributor to the cancer epidemic.
Aspartame
The artificial sweetener aspartame is promoted as an ingredient in diet products for weight loss and diabetes. In addition to worsening each of those conditions, it is a terrible neurotoxin. It turns to methanol (toxic wood alcohol) and formaldehyde in the body, impairing the brain, weakening eyesight, damaging the pancreas and liver, and making some people crazy. Why was this poison ever approved for consumption?
Aspartame is now added to even regular chewing gum, as well as to flavored water. Read labels for ingredients to avoid this poison.
MSG
Monosodium Glutamate is used as a flavor enhancer. It is both an “excitotoxin” that stresses cells, and a neurotoxin bothering the brain and nerves. It diminishes intelligence, can cause bloating and digestive distress, and may harm the heart as well.
BPA
Bisphenol Acetate is an estrogen mimicker that is permitted to be in food service and household plastics, including plastic water bottles. This and similar plasticizers such as Bisphenol Sulfone (BPS) are causing sexual imbalances and alterations and cancers of the breast and sex organs.
Glyphosate
This toxic herbicide and other harmful chemicals used in agriculture will not simply wash off of the produce.
Glyphosate is reported to be a factor in both infertility and cancer. Most other agri-chemicals are also debilitating. Glyphosate and other runoff chemicals are commonly found in drinking water as well.
GMOs
Genetically Modified Organisms, usually used in concert with agricultural chemicals, include the common food crops corn, soybeans, canola oil and sugar beets. In the United States, nearly all of each of these widely consumed foods are genetically modified, much of the milk and dairy items contain BgH growth hormone, and most meat animals’ feed contains GMOs, with no indication on labels.
Genetically altered foods are hard on the digestive system, and usually damaging to cells and organs.
EMFs
Electromagnetic fields from cell phones, computers, televisions, “smart meters”, transmission wires and towers, etc., are seriously weakening and impairing health in people, animals and plants. The more you have EMF frequencies in proximity, the greater the damage. Use a cell phone sparingly and switch ears often if holding it near the head.
Why Are We Being Poisoned?
We are being systematically POISONED ON PURPOSE, and need to raise awareness about it enough to get it STOPPED.
Why are we being massively exposed to a range of serious poisons while being falsely told that they are not harmful or even good for us? The elite power controllers do this:
* To foster apathy
* To weaken resistance
* To reduce intelligence
* To increase susceptibility to entrainment and hypnosis
* To experiment on an ignorant populace
* To test longevity methods for their benefit
* To develop distracting and incapacitating health problems
* To generate business for the medical industry
* To foster infertility and infanticide
* To cause people to die younger
* To reduce the population
* To eliminate independent small farmers and businesses
* To control food production, weather, land and resources
* To profitably (cheaply) dispose of industrial waste
* To make maximum profits
* To fully control this world
* To secure lasting tyranny
This has been done gradually, stealthily and incrementally.
NaturalNews) Some things in nature simply work, because they are a part of a whole, an integral part and some specific function which contributes to the underlying naturalistic state. The word “fortified,” when referring to food, is often misleading because people are led to believe that food scientists simply “add back in” some vitamins by magically “inserting” them into food that “needs nutritional help.” This fortification can create the exact opposite effect and cause damage to the human body, which often cannot assimilate these “individual”and separate fortifications. How many foods are “fortified” with things your body can’t even use, and even worse, contain synthetic additives that wreak havoc on your cells? Since cancer is the mutation of cells that multiply and divide uncontrollably, this form of food and vitamin “processing” is adding to the cancer “explosion” we see taking place in the U.S., where every third person is fighting the “c” word right now.
The English dictionary defines “fortified” as “to strengthen (a place) with defensive works so as to protect it against attack”; e.g., “The whole town was heavily fortified.” So if we put this into “action” with food, it sounds like we’re getting a real boost of immunity with every bite! So what are people really “fortifying” when they’re eating GMO corn flakes and drinking hormone-laden milk? Could it be cancer? (http://www.naturalnews.com)
Corporations often make WILD nutritional claims about junk food and get away with it, like most cereal after they “fortify” it and add back in some DEAD vitamins. To the contrary, live organic herbs, tinctures and healing foods that REALLY do help you get healthy and stay healthy cannot legally state those truths. Why? FDA regulations prevent it. Why? The answer is that there’s not much money to be made off healthy folk. Bottom line: JUNK science makes things worse. Ask yourself right now, “What part of my daily intake is ‘fortified’ with a lie, with a hoax, with food and vitamins my body can’t use and fights to expel?” (http://agriculturesociety.com)
The Great Fortification Hoax
Take an inside look at some typical characteristics of fortified foods. This is where you find the synthetic “Trojan horses” of the food industry, showing up in places you thought were safe:
• Fortified foods are often sold in boxes, cans, plastic or foil wrap or artificial containers.
• They are heavily advertised – many companies who sell these foods spend more on advertising budgets than on food quality.
• They are often altered from their original state – some type of chemical alteration like heat (such as boiling), pressure (pulsing), oxidation, osmotic inhibition (use of syrups), ultra high water pressure (a type of pasteurization) or toxin inhibition (such as smoking, use of carbon dioxide).
• Synthetic and isolated nutrients are added that are not naturally occurring.
Fortified iodized salt is bad!
One of the first foods to become fortified was salt. Iodized salt was first introduced in 1924 in Michigan. As scientists began to study the importance of nutrients, minerals and micro-nutrients in health, they began creating synthetic forms of these elements in laboratories for application in foods; however, this reductionist approach disregards the necessity of the elements in their natural state in whole foods, which is the only place where synergistic complexes that are necessary for health can be found. After World War II, more than half of the food for sale in America was processed, and the scientists figured out exactly what additives, preservatives and “fortifiers” helped Big Pharma get bigger. Fast forward to today.
Fortifying disease and illness
Although discussions in health communities about “nutrient toxicity” and warnings of “overdoses” are abundant, the vast differences between synthetic nutrients produced in a laboratory and real nutrients in whole foods are seldom discussed. When people consume artificially produced vitamins and minerals, the risk of overdose and toxicity increases exponentially. Why is that? Nutrients contained in whole foods from nature are balanced correctly, and overdosing from those important elements would be nearly impossible. Here is where “fortified” fools the mainstream consumers. “To quantify nutrient amounts in an artificial supplement to meet a “minimum daily requirement” where those elements are without their co-factors and naturally-occurring enzymes is a health disaster waiting to happen.” (http://agriculturesociety.com)
The bottom line is that “in order for the human body to recognize and use nutrients, they cannot be produced artificially in a lab and isolated to be added into foods where they do not normally occur.” The key words here are “recognize and use,” not fortify and confuse.
Cereal and milk both “fortified” synthetically
Cereal and milk are two of the best examples of fortified foods. Most boxed cereals are produced through a process called extrusion, where grains are forced through a small hole in a machine and then subjected to high temperatures. The grains are then fortified with synthetic nutrients to “replace” what was lost during processing. Milk goes through a similar process. It is heated or pasteurized to kill harmful bacteria, but as this occurs, good bacteria and vitamins are also denatured or compromised. Denatured is defined as to “take away or alter the natural qualities of.” Yet the outlandish claim about pasteurization that nutrients are not significantly destroyed is still made. So then, if that’s the case, why fortify with vitamin D? This is done to trick the general public into believing the food is good for them and gives them the chance to keep their customers for life.You see, synthetic vitamin D cannot be properly assimilated into the human body without many other co-factors and enzymes, including vitamin A, all of which are damaged during pasteurization. There is plenty of scientific evidence about this lack of REAL vitamin D adversely affecting your DNA and overall health. (http://www.naturalnews.com)
Organic Consumers warns people against synthetic vitamins, as they build up in the fat tissues, fat deposits and the liver. In fortified milk, you may not know even how much synthetic vitamin D you are getting. Plus, who’s adding up all the hormones you are consuming? (http://www.naturalnews.com) Are those fortifying your blood and your “immunity?” If you must drink milk, consider organic or raw fresh milk. (http://www.naturalnews.com)
Stay informed, not “fortified”
A fortified food is always a processed food, because processed foods are those that are altered from their naturally occurring states. Food companies produce processed and fortified foods to extend the shelf-life of products, but it shortens human life. It’s all about the money! Plus, synthetic foods usually contain the cheapest ingredients and are available just about anywhere. Incessant advertising and marketing of the lowest quality foods fuel the epidemics of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s. The good news is that you have the power of choice! Keep your body healthy. Shop wisely. Watch for hoaxes and myths and stay tuned to the organic world of whole food. Don’t fall for the fortification hoax. (http://programs.webseed.com)
American delusion of unlimited borrowing, consumption and debt spending to come to an end
(NaturalNews) Right now, it’s pretty easy to disbelieve anyone who is trying to sound the alarm that something bad could ever happen to America.
It’s easy, while sitting in the comfort of our homes, watching life go on around us, to dismiss as fear-mongering anyone who tries to shatter the images of calm with dire predictions of calamity and chaos – just around the corner.
I get that. Believing that everything is okay – well, pretending that everything is okay – is a helluva lot easier than contemplating disaster and what to do when it happens.
And yet, that’s exactly what is liable to get so many Americans killed – or worse yet, enslaved (because I agree with our founding philosophers who believed it is worse to live in chains than to die a free man): This mistaken belief that, no matter what, our country will survive anything.
It’s the debt – and borrowing – stupid
But unlimited borrowing, risky fiscal and economic policies built on lies and the government’s addiction to spending will take its toll on our country, sooner or later. As we have already begun to see in socialist Europe – eventually, the politicians, seeking votes, promise far more in benefits than the beleaguered, taxpaying public can support; and when that happens, the system – the serene life as we know it – will come crashing down around us.
The experts have already begun to sound the alarm bells. Thorsten Polleit, writing for the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a libertarian-leaning group advocating the economic and fiscal policies of its Austrian namesake, notes:
The current upward dynamic of the debt-to-GDP ratio is economically unsustainable. It cannot go on forever. To see this, let us assume that the total debt-to-GDP ratio does continue to grow at the average rate at which it has expanded from Q1 1971 to Q2 2009… The total debt-to-GDP ratio would exceed 600 percent at the start of 2029 and reach more than 1000 percent in 2050.
Admittedly, we do not know how much debt relative to GDP an economy can shoulder. And, of course, there might even be good reasons for the ratio to rise over time. … One thing is clear, though: the level of debt relative to income cannot rise without limit. This insight is important, given that there is strong reason to believe that the extraordinary rise in the debt-to-GDP ratio is a result of the government-controlled, fiat-money system in which the money supply is increased through bank lending.
‘We haven’t even gotten people to understand the charade that we have’
Bill Fleckenstein, president of Fleckenstein Capital, who writes a popular column called “Contrarian Chronicles” for MSN Money, said this in a recent interview with King World News:
Right now, people continue to believe that the same idiots that created all of these problems, namely the central banks, are going to somehow get us out of it with the exact same policies that got us into it, only at a much higher (aggressive) level of pursuing those policies. …
We haven’t even gotten people to understand the charade that we have. … What the masses have done over and over again is to believe one more time that it’s all going to be OK … We are in a unique moment in history. The whole world is printing confetti, and (yet) people seem to think that’s going to work out fine.
The longer you keep pursuing insane policies, the more you pile (them) on top of each other, the worse it gets … So, when the Fed can’t print money and we have to deal with this, it’s going to be brutal.
What’s more, even the government’s own fiscal watchdog is saying the exact same thing. From a revised Congressional Budget Office report in May:
The Congressional Budget Office’s updated budget outlook projects that, under the baseline rules the agency is required by law to follow, spending will total $46.677 trillion over the next 10 years, revenues will total $40.336 trillion, and the debt will climb to $25.228 trillion by the end of 2023.
That’s unsustainable, period.
But then again, we’ve been warned. What we are prepared to do about it, as a people, remains to be seen.
NaturalNews) A new video from the group calling itself “Organic Spies” is once again rocking the organic food industry. In the video, a woman who identifies herself as a former employee of Whole Foods Market (WFM) testifies that she and other employees were deliberately trained by Whole Foods Market management to lie to store customers about whether the stores carry foods made with genetically engineered ingredients (GMOs).
According to this female whistleblower, whose identity is concealed for her protection, Whole Foods Market employees were deliberately instructed to lie to customers as part of their employee training. The denial of GMOs being sold in Whole Foods stores was an integral part of the training of employees, she explains:
When we first started, we had a “Day One and a Day Two, and they teach us about the core values of Whole Foods Market, the core values of nothing’s artificial, everything’s natural… When I first started at Whole Foods, I didn’t know what a GMO was. I had no idea what it was. They taught us what it was, and how Whole Foods Market did not carry GMOs.
So if a customer would have came up to me and said, do you guys have anything with GMOs? Does this product contain GMOs? [I would have said] absolutely not. Does not contain GMOs. Because we were taught that we don’t carry anything with GMOs, only natural, nothing artificial.
Whistleblower confirmed as former Whole Foods employee
According to Organic Spies, Whole Foods Market deliberately taught employees to lie to customers about GMOs for a five-year period, spanning 2007 – 2011.
The Organic Spies group claims to have evidence of this from multiple Whole Foods Market stores in several major cities across the United States.
Organic Spies further claims that Whole Foods top executives were fully aware that low-level employees were being deliberately trained to lie to customers about GMOs. This claim is denied by Whole Foods Market (see below).
As part of the due diligence conducted by Natural News, I personally saw documents that appear to confirm this whistleblower was a former employee of Whole Foods. I also spoke with her by phone and was able to confirm that she speaks with what appears to be specialized knowledge that would not normally be known by someone who had not been an actual employee of Whole Foods.
Here’s an image from the video, depicting this whistleblower:
In this Organic Spies video, she goes on to explain:
I was shocked to find out that Whole Foods did carry products containing GMOs. I feel like a fool, you know, if a pregnant woman came up to me, or somebody with serious medical issues asked me that, I would tell them no, we do not carry anything with GMOs… firmly believing that we didn’t carry anything with GMOs.
In my training, the ASTL did Day One, Day Two. They’re like the second person in charge of the store. And on top of them is the store team leader, who’s in charge of the whole store. I believe that whoever was teaching the class, the ASTL, also believed that there was no GMOs in the store, and everybody who worked in the store, I really believe thought that there was no GMOs. Who’s telling the ASTLs that train us that there are no GMOs?
As this whistleblower explains, there does seem to be quite a lot of “corporate indoctrination” taking place with new employees on their “Day One” (code word for their first day of work). Natural News found this comment from a person describing themselves as a Whole Foods Market employee on Indeed.com which appears to further support this idea:
From username “Zerohito” My aversion began on my Day One – this is code for your first day at work, it’s a day of training, seeing where everything is at, watching videos of john mackey who reminds me a lot of some kind of seventies new age amway / est communist guru and various nationwide team members brainwashing the new team member of the various ways that whole foods market is superior to the bunch. and then they test you on the ways in which its great and unique several times throughout the day. and then make you sign it. it was so weird i actually wanted to walk out. but i didn’t because the money’s pretty good and the economy is poor…
This indoctrination effort appears to be very effective. Employees tend to believe what they are told by corporate training videos. As this Organic Spies whistleblower went on to explain:
When Organic Spies came out and they had on film team members saying we don’t carry GMOs, I know they whole-heartedly believed that Whole Foods didn’t carry GMOs. That’s what we were taught. They didn’t carry GMOs. So when the Organic Spies came out, I called my friends who used to work at Whole Foods. I said, did you know that Whole Foods carried GMOs? No! They do? Yeah! They do!
Organic Spies strikes again
This new video is the second major release from the group calling itself “Organic Spies,” which made headlines last year by catching dozens Whole Foods employees on video giving out false and misleading information about GMOs sold in their stores.
The first Organic Spies video, available here on TV.naturalnews.com, received hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube before it was suddenly censored by YouTube, most likely under pressure from Whole Foods Market. It featured over a dozen Whole Foods employees lying to customers and stating that Whole Foods did not carry or sell any genetically modified foods.
As a statement of fact, Whole Foods carries all sorts of foods containing GMOs, and after this Organic Spies video hit the ‘net, Whole Foods was forced into a public relations position where they needed to issue a public denial, claiming they did not intentionally train their employees that the stores do not carry GMOs.
Whole Foods carries so many different GMOs that they don’t even know how many GMO products they carry. As stated by a Whole Foods employee in a public relations video, “Does Whole Foods Market have GMOs in our stores? Yes, we probably do have lots and lots of products that contain GMO ingredients in our stores. How many? We don’t know… and neither does any other grocer in the United States.”
To see this shocking quote from an actual Whole Foods Market spokesperson, watch the new Organic Spies video at:
In a September 27, 2012 blog post, Whole Foods CEO A.C. Gallo stated, “I hope you don’t believe the claims that Whole Foods Market is coaching its Team Members to give false information to its customers, because it’s completely untrue. The idea goes directly against who we are as a company — for years, we’ve worked hard to provide as much information as possible about our products to our customers.”
This statement is now directly contradicted by the new Organic Spies video being released exclusively here at Natural News. If the whistleblower is correct, it means A.C. Gallo was either deliberately lying to the public or was inexplicably unaware of the corporate training being given to new employees (“team members”). Click here to watch the video now and decide for yourself.
Whole Foods now stands accused of functioning as an “organic fraud machine”
The new Organic Spies video goes much further than merely accusing Whole Foods of deliberately training its employees to lie about GMOs. It also describes Whole Foods as an “organic fraud machine” and provides its reasoning for that charge as follows:
• Whole Foods has been granted “certified organic grocer” certification by CCOF, an organic foods certifier. It proudly promotes the “USDA Organic” seal next to its name, causing customers to falsely believe everything in the store is certified organic.
• In blogs such as this one, Whole Foods refers to itself as a “Certified Organic Grocer,” further causing customers to falsely believe the store is 100% certified organic.
• In reality, Whole Foods Market sells thousands of products which are not certified organic at all. Many of Whole Foods’ products are grown with pesticides, herbicides and genetically engineered seeds from Monsanto. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is openly admitted by Whole Foods employees and executives.
• This deception is further reinforced by Whole Foods stores posting very large signage on the side of its buildings that say things such as, “Nothing Artificial. Ever.” (See image, right). To understand why this claim is blatantly false, realize that genetically engineered foods are, by definition, artificial.
• Whole Foods’ claim that it is a “Certified Organic Grocer” is extremely misleading to consumers who are tricked into thinking that everything the store sells is organic (and therefore also non-GMO).
• The CCOF certification of Whole Foods is an abuse CCOF’s certification power and causes industry-wide harm because it dilutes the true meaning of organic certification. If a store that isn’t 100% organic can be “certified organic” by CCOF, then what exactly does “organic” really mean? Can the corner quickie-mart also be certified organic if it carries a few organic items among the Slim Jims and Cheetos it sells?
Whole Foods’ “organic” certification looks a lot like greenwashing
As you can see from this image on the right, Whole Foods proudly proclaims that it is “America’s First National Certified Organic Grocer.
The text underneath this bold statement explains:
This prestigious recognition assures you that Whole Foods Market fulfills strict handling standards so that the organic goods you purchase from us stay organic from the farm to your shopping cart.
Hold on a sec, folks. Did you really read that? This CCOF organic certification appears to be certifying nothing more than the claim that “organic foods STAY organic.”
Is that really so amazing?
Because I have never seen, in my over 10 years of investigative journalism in the natural health industry, any organic food magically transform itself into a non-organic food. Pesticides do not spontaneously appear out of nowhere…
So really, if you dig into the Whole Foods organic certification granted by CCOF, it seems that Whole Foods is really only being certified in its food handling. There is absolutely nothing in the certification that says Whole Foods sells only organic foods, which would be the commonsense requirement to be a “certified organic grocer.”
According to the USDA, in fact, a food cannot be “certified organic” unless it contains at least 95% certified organic ingredients. Does the Whole Foods inventory consist of 95% certified organic products? Not even close.
As an independent investigative journalist, I have to agree with Organic Spies that Whole Foods Market is engaged in quite a number of alarming marketing deceptions. The “organic fraud machine” accusation has merit and needs to be further investigated by the USDA as well as independent media like Natural News. Why? Because the CCOF organic certification of Whole Foods appears to lack any legitimate factual justification. The idea that a grocer can “handle foods” in a specific way is simply not sufficient to achieve “organic certification” for the entire store. The very idea is ridiculous, in fact.
By the way, as background to all this, it is important to tell you that I am the director of a USDA certified organic food manufacturing facility, and I have been through the organic certification process. I am not simply throwing out wild guesses at what organics really means. I am reporting this with the benefit of considerable first-hand experience, and I can tell you with confidence that many consumers will be misled by Whole Foods’ claim to be a “certified organic grocer.” Many people will assume that means the entire store is all organic (which it isn’t).
Natural Grocers tells the simple truth
Want to hear some honest language from a truly certified organic grocer?
As Natural Grocery explains, “One of the founding principles of Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage is a commitment to quality. It is within this commitment that we sell only USDA certified organic produce — you will never find conventional produce at any of our stores.”
Simple, huh? So why can’t Whole Foods be just as clear about what it sells?
Organic Spies calls for USDA to intervene and stop the “organic fraud machine”
In this new video, the Organic Spies group is calling for the USDA to intervene and “stop the organic fraud machine.”
According to Organic Spies, Whole Foods has deliberately trained its employees to lie to the public about the ingredients in the foods it sells, and it has furthermore engaged in a highly deceptive campaign of what Organic Spies characterizes as “fraud” by tricking consumers into believing everything it sells is organic (via the CCOF “certified organic grocer” status).
Organic Spies requests you do not post this video on YouTube
If you attempt to post this video on YouTube, it will be immediately banned due to YouTube’s outrageous censorship of real journalism and whistleblowers.
Thus, if you do post this video on YouTube and share the link, people who try to click the link will end up seeing a “video removed” message from YouTube. To avoid this, only share this link from TV.naturalnews.com, which will be fully protected by Natural News according to the First Amendment of the United States of America, as well as all the protections of free speech accorded journalists and media organizations operating in the public interest.
Natural News fully anticipates being threatened by the Whole Foods Market legal team, and we are well aware of our free speech rights as well as our responsibilities to protect our sources and conduct meaningful investigative journalism in the public interest. In fact, we would argue that we are one of the very few organizations left in America still conducting actual investigative journalism. As such, we are willing to go to great lengths to defend our First Amendment rights.
Here’s the photo. Remember, it hasn’t been digitally altered! Source: Supplied
IMAGINE waking up to find a horse on your roof.
It happened to one family on Tuesday. Pat and Stephen Downey, who raise racing horses in New Brunswick, Canada, woke to the sight of a colt standing on the roof of their garage.
Stephen’s brother, Archie, had spotted the horse chilling on the roof and taken a photo before hauling it down.
“We saw the picture,” Pat told CTV News. “He called us as soon as he got him off because he didn’t have any trouble. Well, it took him a while, but he didn’t have any trouble getting him off.”
The couple thought the photo was a joke.
“It looked like Archie had done a joke on Stephen and Photoshopped the horse on the roof because that just doesn’t happen,” Pat said. “You would never get a horse to do something like that.”
It wasn’t a hoax. Stephen told CTV News he suspected the horse was bored, because he isn’t usually left alone.
“He’s like a two or three-year-old kid and he was just looking for some excitement and he got in trouble like a regular kid would do,” Stephen said.
The horse was checked for injuries when it returned to the ground, but everything seemed to be in order.
Even so, the Downeys have built a fence on the roof to stop their horses from climbing up there again.
COMET ISON: Comet ISON is still more than two months away from its spectacular close encounter with the sun. Amateur astronomers aren’t waiting. The brightening comet has become a good target for backyard telescopes in the pre-dawn sky and pictures of the comet are pouring in. Chris Schur captured this image from his home observatory in Payson, Arizona:
“This 25 minute exposure shows the comet through a 12 inch telescope,” says Schur. “The image has sharp focus, perfect tracking and the star trails are unbroken and smooth. A nearby star added to the nice composition.”
At the moment, ISON is too dim for the naked eye–“I estimate the comet’s magnitude to be +12.5,” says Schur–but it is on track to become an impressive sungrazer. For comparison, Comet ISON is brighter than Comet Lovejoy was in 2011 at a similar distance from the sun. The fact that Comet Lovejoy turned into a spectacular sungrazer bodes well for the performance of Comet ISON.
Observers of Comet ISON will notice that it is in the same part of the sky as Mars. The comet will make a close approach to the Red Planet on October 1st, and during that time Mars satellites will be taking ISON’s picture at point blank range. Those images will likely rival or improve upon the view from Earth.
Just when you thought things were getting very complicated, it turns out that everything somehow or another is able to sort itself out. Take advantage of this energy to look at things that are concerning you right now. You might just find that much of what you thought they entailed was actually just part of your perspective, where you were, when those things first arose. Things are different now, and you can see them for what they are. You are changing greatly in this energy, and as part of this, your viewpoints and priorities are also shifting. This is a good day for cleaning out, tearing down, and then you can plan to build anew.
The Titan II carried the most powerful warhead in America’s arsenal—more than 560 times the yield of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Rob Schoenbaum/Zuma
On January 23, 1961, a B-52 packing a pair of Mark 39 hydrogen bombs suffered a refueling snafu and went into an uncontrolled spin over North Carolina. In the cockpit of the rapidly disintegrating bomber (only one crew member bailed out safely) was a lanyard attached to the bomb-release mechanism. Intense G-forces tugged hard at it and unleashed the nukes, which, at four megatons, were 250 times more powerful than the weapon that leveled Hiroshima. One of them “failed safe” and plummeted to the ground unarmed. The other weapon’s failsafe mechanisms—the devices designed to prevent an accidental detonation—were subverted one by one, as Eric Schlosser recounts in his new book, Command and Control:
When the lanyard was pulled, the locking pins were removed from one of the bombs. The Mark 39 fell from the plane. The arming wires were yanked out, and the bomb responded as though it had been deliberately released by the crew above a target. The pulse generator activated the low-voltage thermal batteries. The drogue parachute opened, and then the main chute. The barometric switches closed. The timer ran out, activating the high-voltage thermal batteries. The bomb hit the ground, and the piezoelectric crystals inside the nose crushed. They sent a firing signal…
Unable to deny that two of its bombs had fallen from the sky—one in a swampy meadow, the other in a field near Faro, North Carolina—the Air Force insisted that there had never been any danger of a nuclear detonation. This was a lie.
Here’s the truth: Just days after JFK was sworn in as president, one of the most terrifying weapons in our arsenal was a hair’s breadth from detonating on American soil. It would have pulverized North Carolina and, depending on wind conditions, blanketed East Coast cities (including New York and Washington, DC) in lethal fallout. The only thing standing between us and an explosion so catastrophic that it would have radically altered the course of history was a simple electronic toggle switch in the cockpit, a part that probably cost a couple of bucks to manufacture and easily could have been undermined by a short circuit—hardly a far-fetched scenario in an electronics-laden airplane that’s breaking apart.
The anecdote above is just one of many “holy shit!” revelations readers will discover in the latest book from the best-selling author of Fast Food Nation. Easily the most unsettling work of nonfiction I’ve ever read, Schlosser’s six-year investigation of America’s “broken arrows” (nuclear weapons mishaps) is by and large historical—this stuff is top secret, after all—but the book is beyond relevant. It’s critical reading in a nation with thousands of nukes still on hair-trigger alert.
In sections, Command and Control reads like a character-driven thriller as Schlosser draws on his deep reporting, extensive interviews, and documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act to demonstrate how human error, computer glitches, dilution of authority, poor communications, occasional incompetence, and the routine hoarding of crucial information have nearly brought about our worst nightmare on numerous occasions.
While casual readers will learn a great deal about the history and geopolitics of our America’s nuclear arsenal, Schlosser’s central narrative is built around a deadly 1980 explosion at a missile silo in Damascus, Arkansas, where our most powerful weapon, a W-53 thermonuclear warhead, sat atop a Titan II missile. He puts us on site as the catastrophe unfolds, offering an intimate window on the perspectives and personalities of those involved. It’s a gripping yarn that shows how the military concept of “command and control”—the process that governs how decisions are made and orders are executed—functions in practice, and how it can unravel in a crisis.
“Command and Control” will leave readers with a deep unease about our ability—let alone, say, Pakistan’s—to handle nuclear weapons safely.
Absent the Soviet threat, it’s easy to forget that these ungodly devices are still all around us. An entire generation, as Schlosser told me recently, is blissfully unaware of the specter of nuclear devastation. But Command and Control will leave readers of any age with a deep unease about our ability—to say nothing of, say, Pakistan’s—to handle these weapons safely. Schlosser wrote the book in the hope of reviving America’s long-dormant debate about “the most dangerous machines ever invented.” Fortunately, he delivers a page-turner, not a doorstop.
So below you’ll find the first chapter. It’s just a tease, but it’ll give you a taste of what’s in store. The book is available September 17. Buy it. Read it. Make noise about it. And don’t miss my chat with Schlosser about his epic project, and why he believes “it’s remarkable—it’s incredible!—that a major city hasn’t been destroyed since Nagasaki.”
On September 18, 1980, at about 6:30 in the evening, Senior Airman David Powell and Airman Jeffrey Plumb walked into the silo at Launch Complex 374-7, a few miles north of Damascus, Arkansas. They were planning to do a routine maintenance procedure on a Titan II missile.
They’d spent countless hours underground at complexes like this one. But no matter how many times they entered the silo, the Titan II always looked impressive. It was the largest intercontinental ballistic missile ever built by the United States: 10 feet in diameter and 103 feet tall, roughly the height of a nine-story building. It had an aluminum skin with a matte finish and U.S. AIR FORCE painted in big letters down the side. The nose cone on top of the Titan II was deep black, and inside it sat a W-53 thermonuclear warhead, the most powerful weapon ever carried by an American missile. The warhead had a yield of nine megatons—about three times the explosive force of all the bombs dropped during the Second World War, including both atomic bombs.
The silo was eerily quiet, and mercury vapor lights on the walls bathed the missile in a bright white glow.
Day or night, winter or spring, the silo always felt the same. It was eerily quiet, and mercury vapor lights on the walls bathed the missile in a bright white glow. When you opened the door on a lower level and stepped into the launch duct, the Titan II loomed above you like an immense black-tipped silver bullet, loaded in a concrete gun barrel, primed, cocked, ready to go, and pointed at the sky.
The missile was designed to launch within a minute and hit a target as far as 6,000 miles away. In order to do that, the Titan II relied upon a pair of liquid propellants—a rocket fuel and an oxidizer—that were “hypergolic.” The moment they came into contact with each other, they’d instantly and forcefully ignite. The missile had two stages, and inside both of them, an oxidizer tank rested on top of a fuel tank, with pipes leading down to an engine. Stage 1, which extended about 70 feet upward from the bottom of the missile, contained about 85,000 pounds of fuel and 163,000 pounds of oxidizer.
Stage 2, the upper section where the warhead sat, was smaller and held about one fourth of those amounts. If the missile were launched, fuel and oxidizer would flow through the stage 1 pipes, mix inside the combustion chambers of the engine, catch on fire, emit hot gases, and send almost half a million pounds of thrust through the supersonic convergent-divergent nozzles beneath it. Within a few minutes, the Titan II would be 50 miles off the ground.
The two propellants were extremely efficient—and extremely dangerous. The fuel, Aerozine-50, could spontaneously ignite when it came into contact with everyday things like wool, rags, or rust. As a liquid, Aerozine-50 was clear and colorless. As a vapor, it reacted with the water and the oxygen in the air and became a whitish cloud with a fishy smell. This fuel vapor could be explosive in proportions as low as 2 percent. Inhaling it could cause breathing difficulties, a reduced heart rate, vomiting, convulsions, tremors, and death. The fuel was also highly carcinogenic and easily absorbed through the skin.
The missile’s oxidizer was classified as a “Poison A,” the most deadly category of man-made chemicals.
The missile’s oxidizer, nitrogen tetroxide, was even more hazardous. Under federal law, it was classified as a “Poison A,” the most deadly category of man-made chemicals. In its liquid form, the oxidizer was a translucent, yellowy brown. Although not as flammable as the fuel, it could spontaneously ignite if it touched leather, paper, cloth, or wood. And its boiling point was only 70 degrees Fahrenheit. At temperatures any higher, the liquid oxidizer boiled into a reddish brown vapor that smelled like ammonia. Contact with water turned the vapor into a corrosive acid that could react with the moisture in a person’s eyes or skin and cause severe burns. When inhaled, the oxidizer could destroy tissue in the upper respiratory system and the lungs. The damage might not be felt immediately. Six to twelve hours after being inhaled, the stuff could suddenly cause headaches, dizziness, difficulty breathing, pneumonia, and pulmonary edema leading to death.
for the rest of the article, go to: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/08/eric-schlosser-command-control-excerpt-nuclear-weapons?page=2
Even the best results can come out what seem to be the worst situations. You will be seeing this today as things are shifting and moving more and more. There is help for you if you will go within and allow yourself to open to receive it. It can come in the most unusual ways, so do not discount the little things today. This is also a good time to find joy in doing things you love. There is no point in dwelling on the negative. See the glass as half full and know that it is half full only because it is right now being filled up with things that you are wishing to manifest. This is a good day, therefore, to sit down and write out, draw, think about, etc. what it is that you are wishing to manifest as tis year moves towards an end. There is lots of energy coming in right now, and if you can hook into the positive stuff, then you can use that momentum to bring forth your deepest desires. Take hold of the energy of the day and go for it.
Many of them have terrible side effects, often blocking biological systems and fostering long-term illness. Then additional drugs are prescribed. Many of the routine medications today are psychotropic, further reducing intelligence and enthusiasm.
The first Organic Spies video, 
In a 
• This deception is further reinforced by Whole Foods stores posting very large signage on the side of its buildings that say things such as, “Nothing Artificial. Ever.” (See image, right). To understand why this claim is blatantly false, realize that genetically engineered foods are, by definition, artificial.
As you can see from this image on the right, Whole Foods proudly proclaims that it is “America’s First National Certified Organic Grocer.
The Titan II carried the most powerful warhead in America’s arsenal—more than 560 times the yield of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Rob Schoenbaum/Zuma