Thank you Jake!

Good Day!

I would like to tell you about Jake. Jake grew up in Iowa on a farm. Later his folks moved to town when it didn't work out how they wished. Jake went to Iowa State University and had a double major in anthropology and marketing. He is very interested in Fair Trade companies and wanted to work for one after he graduated, thinking they were all in Latin America, or at least really far away from Iowa. He was pleasantly surprised to see our internship posting for a Fair Trade Meat marketing internship, in Iowa and just 20 minutes away from campus so he applied.

Jake worked with us during his Junior and Senior year, helping us very conscientiously. After graduation, he and a friend decided to set out on an adventure to a big city, so we lost him to the allure of Chicago. We are thrilled to learn he attained a job in the organic food industry, for an organic food research company in Chicago.

I want to thank Jake here for his contributions and wish him the very best in his future endeavors!

Garden Update

Last week brought the first day of summer and first serious tornado watch for our area. No tornado touchdown in our neighborhood, just some much needed rain.

My evening pasttime is working in my vegetable garden. The vegetables are to feed my family. We eat most of them fresh. This year, we are raising potatos, radishes, cucumbers, brussel sprouts, lettuce, kohlrabis, onions, snap peas, herbs, cutting flowers, filet beans, pumpkins, sweet corn, popcorn, brocolli, zucchini and turnips. I do a little canning, mostly tomato sauce, pickles, jam and applesauce.

Here are some photos of the great view I have while I am weeding. I learn so much from weeds, especially in July. In May and June, I feel competent, current with weed pulling. Then in July, they seem to become monstrous overnight. As I pull these big ones out with all my strength, they remind me that selective vision or lassitude brings on bigger problems that are harder to clean up than little issues that could be resolved on a daily basis.

I hope your week is a good one,
Wende

Children's Studies on effects of Organic Diet

Hello Friends,

I hope your week has had the fair weather that mine has.

I read two studies which encouraged me to keep at my work.

The first was a report by The Center for Advancement of Health. It reported that school age children who ate organic foods instead of conventional foods had six times lower levels of pesticide by-products in their bodies.

The second study was by The National Institute of Health. The study had 23 children aged 3 to 11 who ate their normal diet for the first three days. Researchers found all 23kids had metabolites of malathion and chloropyrifos pesticides in their urine when they enrolled in the study.

For the next five days, the children ate organic replacements of many foods in their usual diet. As soon as they switched to organic diets, these pesticide metabolites dropped and remained at zero levels until "conventional" food was reintroduced. In the final week, the children resumed their normal diet and the metabolites of pesticides returned.

The authors of the study "Environmental Health Perspectives" wrote: "We were able to demonstrate that an organic diet provides a dramatic and immediate protective effect against exposures to organophosphorus pesticides that are commonly used in agricultural production."