Bar Codes on Veggies

...rket, consumers use camera equipped cell phones to scan the QR code on the label. The code links to a mobile website detailing origin, soil composition, organic fertilizer content percentage (as opposed to chemical), use of pesticides and herbicides and even the name of the farm it was grown on. Consumers can also access the same information over the Ibaraki Agricultural Produce Net website by inputting a numbered code on each label.” Though we’re...

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New Health Food Trends at the Natural Products Food Expo West

...y have some sort of wheat allergy. However, someone tell me why we have to label products like tomato sauce and raw chicken as being “gluten free?” Most new gluten free products, everything from pasta to crackers to power bars, use quinoa. The Natural Products Expo’s own trade publication noted that the exponential growth of quinoa consumption in the U.S. has created a situation in which the indigenous people of Peru can no longer afford their own...

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Epic Rants and Raves

...an elemental virtue. In nature nothing is slighted, but the least and the greatest of tasks are performed with equal care, and diligence, and patience, and love, and intelligence. We are ineffectual because we are slovenly and lazy and content to have things half done; we are willing to sit down and give up before the thing is finished. Whereas we should never stop short of an utmost effort toward perfection, so long as there is a breath in our b...

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Spider Bite!

...long to UCSD alumni pal Professor Nic, who is visiting us from Canada, the greatest of nations. The bites sent him to the very same Kaiser emergency room that saved Kelly’s life last year. Unfortunately, modern medicine lacks any kind of test that would reveal the scientific name of the perpetrator. Kelly and I immediately pinned the blame on the infamous Brown Recluse spider (Loxosceles reclusa). But, according to the LA County Natural History Mu...

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Putting Your Civic House in Order: How the Young Members of the Family Help

...ardens, clean vacant lots, and flowers, wild and cultivated, everywhere in greatest profusion. But of even greater value than these physical things are the effects upon the individuals who wrought the change–the teachers, children and parents–and the community at large. To the teachers the contest gave an opportunity for carrying gardening instruction into the homes in districts where school gardens have not as yet been organized, as well as for p...

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