Read the link below as a start...

Here is a link that might be useful: What makes organic honey different?

I have been keeping bees for over 60 years and believe me there is no such thing as 'organic' honey, in spite of what sales people write. It is impossible. Buy from a 'local' beekeeper, that way you can be sure of what is in the stuff you buy.
What burns my butt is the 'Chinese honey' mixed in by the packers to create a bigger profit margin. The Chinese are well known for adding all sorts of contaminates, some of which are detrimental to your health and well being.

You expect to find wholesome food at those big box grocery stores?

Yes! Yes I do. I'm more than a little abraded by your continual advice to stop shopping at the grocery store. That's where they sell food and it has nothing to do with the size of the store - a package of something or an apple is the same in a mom'n'pop store as it is at a huge supercenter. There is nowhere else to shop here, no fancy whole foods or farmers market. It's not unreasonable to expect food labels to properly represent what is contained in the products. I'm not in agreement with the attitude of "well that stuff is just bad" so ignore/avoid it. That's unacceptable and they will keep doing it as long as people keep buying it.

I don't understand why you are seemingly concerned, yet insist that you are unaffected and seem unwilling to do anything proactive yourself and you degrade and poke fun at those who do want to take some kind of action, or at least become more informed. What is that?! There are greedy folks out there making dishonest profits by tampering with people's food and you just advise that we look the other way? If you would prefer to make no effort to fix these situations, to just wallow in static incompetence, that's fine, but your "advice" is helping nobody. What are you even saying? That people who work and don't have time to take out the mortar and pestle to grind some corn to make some tortilla chips are not worthy of eating honest, healthy food? Anyone who doesn't have their own garden is not trying hard enough to obtain unmolested food? Those who don't have their own farm are fine to use for guinea pigs for corporate experiments? That everyone should spend all of their time driving from one farm to get some meat to another farm to get some honey to another farm to get some veggies? What if, for example, I live in a huge city? Should I rent a car a few times a month to spend the weekends scouring the countryside? I don't know what kind of fantasy world you live in, but here in the real world, real people expect to buy real food at the grocery store. They expect produce to increase their health, not make them sick. And I'm sick of you insinuating that anyone who buys some kind of package of food at a grocery store is uneducated, or unconcerned, or just not living up to your standards, or not worthy of healthy eating, or whatever it is you are trying to say. Since you seem to be the authority on all of these types of things, why do you choose to just smugly comment on how inadequate everyone is? Wouldn't your efforts be better spent educating people about what is going on? Genuine concern should be channeled into some type of proactivity. Benign smugness is just so unworthy of anyone's time. You seem to have the potential to add some concrete contributions but you say that kind of unsubstantial garbage instead. I am trying with this discussion to share information with anyone who is interested in reading and see no value in snide, snarky, empty interjections. They say that if you're...

Purple, so agree with you.

Kimmsr, I BEG YOU to spend time considering what you want to say before saying it. Your posts are sometimes most informative, but way too many are snarky AND ridiculous. Of course wholesome foods can be bought at the big boxes. All the well-known and respected brands are available. What were you thinking?????????\

Many, many articles, news stories, are available that point out major problems with the food sold in the major grocery stores with the latest being BPA. If you shop very carefully you can find wholesome, nutritious foods at your local big box grocers, but not much from the national food processors. How much of the food you buy in your local big box grocers contains Genetically Engineered foods? Do you know?

I agree w/beeman about ANY honey being truly organic! You would have to plant fields at least 6 miles round your bee hives and insure that no drift came from anything close to them...I'd say next to impossible!
I'm not interested in doing this but someone might want to look on the USDA site to see what % of contaminates are allowed into 100% Organic honey. How much all the tests are allowed to go +/- to still be considered organic. I'd almost bet that there are allowances!

Kimm, if you want to help folks out explain what is bad in the big box store foods or any other grocery store. Tell us what BPA does. And it has been used in all (I think) canned foods for quite a few years now. Even the organic food companies are just now starting to use BPA free cans. The problem with that is that the products MUST be used much faster...doesn't store as long.

Any thing that has GMO'd wheat, corn, soybeans, sugar beets and a few other crops in it is not all that good for any of us, but at least we won't starve if we eat it. Not everyone has the ability, capability or means to grow & preserve their own foods.
And my community also doesn't have any Whole Foods or REAL farmer's markets. We have one here "called" a farmer's mkt. but it is all commercially grown, local produce with a few things being trucked in from other areas. So it is still laced with chemicals...both inside & out!
Personally, I can't afford to eat "organic" in a total diet. I certainly can't afford the grass fed beef that is raised near me...they grind the whole beef into hamburger @ $6.00 a lb!

For those of us who aren't able to either grow our own or purchase organic produce (for whatever reason), google homemade veggie wash & make yourself a batch. Then USE it. It won't get rid of everything but it gets rid of much of the bad stuff on the outside!
If you can afford "organic", here is a site that does lots of mail orders...
http://www.edenfoods.com/

I could not even begin to list all of the problems with the foods most of the big box stores sell, but that information has been in the news now for at least 25 years. If people are not aware of the problems it is because they have not been paying attention.

The best honey I have ever heard is New Zealand Honey. Organic honey I bought a few days ago from http://www.tranzalpinehoney.co.nz was creamed and delicious.

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic honey

I suspect that the Organic label on honey is permitted because the purveyor does not KNOWINGLY violate the NOP standards - that being said, I agree that it is likely highly optimistic at best to assume that the bees themselves are policing their behaviors to conform to those standards. Like many shoppers, they are getting their food from the most convenient and affordable source, not necessarily the healthiest.

Purpleinopp - while I agree with most of your commentary regarding kimmsr's reply, a few further comments. Most large grocery stores are offering increasing availability of healthier foods - the sales of organic produce have been increasing for many years now. The way to encourage that trend is to buy them whenever possible and to be vocal about that preference. There are many places still where the alternatives are less accessible, so it will always be necessary to look closely at the label to determine the merits of any particular product. If more people vote with their dollars, the stores will get the hint. In urban areas where Whole Foods and their ilk, and often, farmers markets, are common, conventional grocers are increasing the options to purchase local and organic products. Even Walmart is getting in on the act. Michael Pollans' book Food Rules gives some excellent guidelines on how to shop most effectively at grocery stores.

Finally, it's just not worth it to get your panties in a knot about how any particular poster chooses to phrase their replies... we're all guilty of poor phraseology once in a while... (admittedly, some more than others) that is apt to rub some readers the wrong way. While the practices kimmsr promotes are in fact ecologically laudable and likely more healthy, they are for many an uneconomical luxury, and sometimes rather bluntly stated. Your response was clearly heartfelt and vigorous, and I could see your blood pressure rising all the way up here in Cambridge. Let it go when you can - it's the internet, after all, and there's no one at the helm. We can only regulate ourselves.

Try this:

Here is a link that might be useful: t'aint honey

Thanks for the link, bi11, interesting.

My blood pressure is fine. Thanks for your concern! My panties are a personal matter although I can assure you that an internet forum is not something for which I solicit input from my panties, or allow them to get involved in any way.

This discussion has helped me learn a lot more about honey, a thing I thought was so simple... not just another discussion knocking all grocery store products with vague generalities.

At this point, it seems to me that if I can't find any 'certified' honey, or honey from a known source, there's no reason to not just buy the cheapest kind. There's no way to really determine the origin of any of it. It's not something we eat often.

My policy is to buy local whenever possible... I buy gallon jars from a farmer I know. Imported honey will always be questionable unless it is EU certified until the standards are more globally accepted and enforced. The EU has, in my opinion, the gold standard at this point; US standards are comparable, but inspection and enforcement and re-certification leave a lot to be desired.

ok there may be some doubt as to the quality of the nectar the bees collect and turn into honey, but most of what is the shop shelves has been further corrupted by processors after it is harvested (for me organic has been corrupted by power, men, money and gov' organic should be no dearer).

the only way to get rue natural honey is from a local bee keeper. we used to feed lorikeets with a mix of honey water a supplement and bread, when we used honey from the shop the dishes went black with sooty mould type of stuff, yet when we bought honey from a local bee enthusiast the trays stayed clean.

what have i heard from people who worked in the honey packing industry: water, liquid glucose or liquid sugar and other that they would not tell me gets added, why do others think shop honey does not candy like true natural honey does, it has an additive, also an additive to make it flow better for those plastic pour it on bottles, all additives.

so honey that sells for around i dunno $29 $30 or so dollars a kilo' keep in mind that liquid glucose and sugar are cheaper than that.

doesn't matter what certification they use they are man made and manipulated, find a local bee enthusiast.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

At the state fair there are bee keeper stands [inside] with honey for sale...also comb honey which I love.

Don't commercial honey producers pasterize the honey?

Once I bought some wild flower honey. It quickly crytalized.

purple: In empathy with kimmsr, there's definitely something funny with the honey, and nearly everything else in big-box stores. Sorry to those of you who think otherwise, or who are lurkers trying to promote big-box stores, whose complete list of offerings is generally a result of mega-scale factory farming.

What do you think prompted the local food movement?

And I might add that it's easy enough to start a local farm market in your town; towns in many states are promoting such endeavors. I sell organic produce at a town-sponsored farm market where it costs $5.00 to set up my 10X10 canopy and table, and we've progressed from 2 or 3 vendors 3 years ago to 18 vendors at last count, and a very-favorable response from local citizens (even though it's in a rural town of about 3,000 people).

When you think about it, farm markets are win/win/win--for growers, for buyers, and for the local economy, as the money stays in your town and is not sent to a faraway state or country

Regarding honey in particular, if its origin is from conventional fruit and vegetable crops, where pesticides are used, that's a starter for what's wrong with it. It's also the reason for "colony collapse", where bees leave the hive and become disoriented and can't find their way home.

Ever heard of "systemic pesticides"? After being applied, they become part of the plant's system, and are also expressed in the nectar and pollen of the plant's flowers.
Adios, honeybees--and for humans, trying to wash the pesticides from such vegetables and fruits is impossible. Thus, "systemic"--part of the plant's system.

I might also mention that the same systemic pesticides are applied to most of the produce you're eating from conventional stores, and just last fall conventional growere were allowed 90 days (if memory serves--could have been more, but easily googled) use on tree fruits, by the EPA, to save the 2011 fruit crop (from a specific insect).

I have a crop bulletin in my hands from a major university in my state recommending the use of a systemic pesiticide on squash, and it's certainly not an isolated incident, by any stretch of the imagination.

Someone asked how many food items in a conventional store do you believe are genetically modified, or contain genetically modified ingredients. In the year 2000, I wrote a paper on GMO food in conventional stores, and it was 70% to 75%, at the time. Although I'm a bit out of the loop now, I'd guess it's at least 80%, maybe 85%.
Again, it's easily googled.

How about non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in factory-farmed meat? 80% of all antibiotics sold go to the agricultural industry, where they're routinely used in farm-raised animal feed, to avoid problems of huddling 2,000 hogs together in close-quarters (and to increase weight-gain). And a more serious extension of routinely feeding antibiotics to factory-farmed animals is the fact that the systematic use of antibiotics has resulted in their ineffectiveness,and a very real fear of the complete loss of efficacy of all antibiotics.

Back to honey. There are at least a few provinces in China that I'm aware of where overuse of pesticides has killed every pollinator insect (and most other insects, too), and the Chinese actually hand-pollinate tree fruits such as Asian Pears, Persimmons, etc.

Google "Chinese honey" to find out the health-threatening toxins and contaminents it contains; and it's little regulated in this country.

Further, some doofus in Florida imported a bunch of (cheap)Asian queen bees about 10-12 years ago, and sent them to beekeepers all over the U.S., who also liked the cheap price. Problem was, they contained body mites and trachael mites to which our honeybees had not been previously exposed. Asian honeybees cleaned themselves of the body mites, but our bees knew nothing of body mites, and had no reason to try and remove them.

Both mites weaken the bees, and nearly all beekeepers now have to medicate their bees to protect them from mites.

Last--organic honey is produced in sparsely-populated areas where there is no conventional agriculture for at least a 2 1/2 mile radius (and some say a 5-mile radius is better), so that there is no danger of bees accessing pesticide-contaminated pollen and nectar.

(Google, "What is the average range of a honeybee while accessing nectar and pollen.)

Easy enough in many parts of the world, but difficult in many areas of the U.S. because of population density, etc.

I believe I produce organic honey: I located hives in an area where there is no conventional (or any other) agriculture for at least 3-4 miles in any direction. The honey comes from wildflowers and flowering trees, almost completely, and not from cultivated crops.

Also, I located the empty hives and allowed wild honeybees to colonize them--so I have honeybees that have not ever been medicated, nor are they in the vicinity of bees which have been medicated.

It's as close as I can come to organic. It's been working for about 10 years, now, but as human population increases--even in extremely rural areas--I have no clue how much longer it will last.

I further sympathize with purple, since there are states and areas within states that provide little information about the food supply, and that also discourage local food growers from selling what they produce (no doubt in collusion with factory farmers). But that's all changing, and there's hope, ahead.

In the meanwhile, as others noted, we have to research what we're eating from conventional stores.

yes mary,

the use of antibiotics in feedlot animals that includes all meats including chicken, they state it is to keep the animals healthy? bit of a question mark yes they keep the animals healthy but they also make the animals grow fatter faster, penicillin was a favoured one, i became resistant to penicillin as no doubt many did because we where getting doses of it in the meat we ate.

same with the overuse (which they do reckoning too much of a good thing won't hurt) of antibiotics all related to human medical antibiotics so when we need one to help us they are far less effective. medical science called for ag' science to reduce sue until testing could be done, ag' science thumbed their nose at the idea, the farmers were on a good thing and they were sticking to it.

the reason i don't eat supermarket or most common butcher shop meats, especially the meat standard meats they promote, i seek grass fed beef from those butchers. the other meat affects me like penicillin does funny hey?

and milk from those new trend factory dairy farms full of antibiotics as well to control mastitis.

yes buy honey from a local bee enthusiast there are no guarantees but it will be as close to natural as you may ever get, when you go for a drive into the country buy some out there buy heaps, doesn't matter if it goes candy in storage that is natural honey, just stand container in hot water (carefully) it will return to honey texture.

as far as i know honey has a very long shelf life in its natural form.

len

len (and other organic growers): Len, I agree 100% with what you've written, and it brings us back to the point of the local food movement--and its necessity for those who wish to eat healthily.

Hopefully, that's why we're all here on the organic gardening forum--to learn to grow healthy food, and also to learn where we can purchase healthy food that we cannot grow, ourselves. Invariably, that food will be organic also--and what could be better than to buy it locally from someone you actually know and trust? As earlier stated, you're helping support growers in your community, and the money stays in your community and is a blessing for the local economy--and you eat the freshest and healthiest food obtainable.

And as more people grow organically for market, the prices for the produce they grow and sell becomes cheaper. I know this first-hand, since I've been involved for many years in growing, eating, and selling organic produce.

One of the contributors to the price reduction is the advent of pre-mixed and/or pelletized organic fertilizers. It was constant work years ago to compost and haul manure and bone meal and other ingredients to grow organically on a large scale. There are now companies pre-mixing the organic components to provide N, P, and K, and it is even possible to have them mix it to your specifications if you purchase a quantity. For vegetable growers, there's always a proven mix of 5/4/3, or 4/3/4, or something similar that suits your area and soil conditions. And the good news is that it's just about as reasonably-priced as chemical fertilizers derived from fossil fuels.

I pay about $15 for a 50-pound bag of organic fertilizer, which is down from the $20 I paid just 5 or 6 years ago. Of course you probably can't go to a retail store and get those prices, but if you do some research in your area and find an organic supplier--or better yet, a reputable mill that does the actual mixing of components--you'll often find prices comparable to those for fossil-fuel-based fertilzers.

(Research organic fertilizers, also: I purchase fertilizer from an organic supplier that says they do not use factory-farmed hen manure, replete with the antibiotic and other medicinal residues we've previously mentioned, as a base.)

While there are drones who will say that our (conventional) food supply is the healthiest on earth, the organic and local food movements grew from the knowledge that this is not true.

When legislation is written to benefit corporate campaign donors, and meat and milk is allowed to conain growth hormones and antibiotics, and fruits and vegetables are laced with systemic pesticides, it's time to find local,organic suppliers that you can rely on to produce truly healthy food.

I'm certainly not trying to give a soap-box speech, since most of you are already aware of everything I've said or you wouldn't be a part of this forum. But we can't grow everything we eat, and buying from a local and trusted organic grower is the next best thing to growing our own.

And the more we do this, and the more demand we create for truly healthy food, favorably affects the prices we pay for healthy food, and sends a message to producers that we only wish to consume healthy and organically-grown food.

mojo, I notice that there is more of a local market for organic produce in the more upscale suburbs around the larger cities....where the spending money is. Perhaps some think that that is the norm. Out here in the open country I know of no organic producers. Perhaps some meat producers could be found a ways away, but I just am not that big of a meat eater to make that economical.

wayne: sounds like a perfect place to start a commercial (and organic) growing venture, and to have the distinction of being the first organic grower in your area--for SOMEONE.

And I say, "for someone", because it's a tough row to hoe, as the old folks say, and requires a ton of fortitude and (financial) self-sacrifice when you're dealing with people who are totally unaware what really constitutes healthy food. I wouldn't encourage a person to invest all their resources in such a venture in a rural area as you mention, since it's usually a slow, learning process. And another serious consideration in growing fruits and vegetables for sale is that you're ALWAYS dealing with a perishable product. When something's ripe and ready to eat, it either has to be sold or--very shortly thereafter--discarded, at a total loss of time and effort and money.

But as the price of organic produce becomes more in line with conventionally grown produce, it's an easy-enough choice for any enlightened person whether they prefer to eat vegetables and fruit contaminated with herbicides and pesticides, or those grown natually and organically, and free from chemical input, free from Genetic Modification, free from being fertilized with composted, human manure, free from irradiation, etc., etc., etc.

If it sounds like I'm trying to sell a concept--I'm not. It matters not to me how much poison a person wishes to have sprayed on their food before they eat it; to each his own. I tired years ago of trying to educate the chemical generation (of which we're all a part) about healthy food. But all of us are here at this site because we're at least enlightened enough to want to learn about healthy food.

As I said, it's a slow, learning process, and plenty of people are too busy struggling to survive to have the time to become enlightened about healthy food.

Sadder yet, is to go to a chain and/or big-box grocey store in rural areas and watch people fill their carts with liter and two-liter bottles of carbonated sugar water to take home and feed their children. Then they wonder why Johnny and Susie can't learn or have an attention deficit.

Eating health food is all about information--or the lack of it. One of the greatest achievements of the current Administration--in my mind--is Michelle Obama's dedication to the cause of proper diet for children in our schools, including the procurement of locally-grown food.

A whole, new market for locally-grown food has been opened as schools and hospitals and other institutions that receive government funding are encouraged to procure locally-grown fruits and vegegtables and meat and dairy products--certainly a concept long overdue.

And for the rural area I mentioned where I sell produce, people are coming around. There will always be people in rural areas who have enough money--which buys time--to learn about healthy food; and that's a beginning, and by extension, an example for others to follow.

For others, I tell them it's food like their grandfathers used to grow, without chemicals and other weird inputs.

And the taste of pure, unadulterated, healthily-grown, organic fruit and vegetables seals the deal. (We do grow fruit in the vegetable garden: watermelons and cantaloupes and strawberries and blackberries and raspberries, for example.)

I used to write a garden column in our county newspaper for many years, and each Spring--about this time of year--I would write that, "It's time to put seeds to soil, to begin our organic vegetable gardens, and to grow the healthiest, tastiest, most nutritious, vine-ripened fruits and vegetables that nature can produce. Kings don't eat any better."

And of course, it couldn't be more true. No amount of money, power, or prestiege can provide one with better food than can be grown by each of us who take the time and effort to do it in our own home gardens. Therein lies the end-result, joy of gardening: to eat the freshest, most tasty and healthy food that can be produced, and we know it to be so, because we grew it ourselves--organically.

mary and all,

the only thing that can deliver us affordable high nutrition value food is for our food to be grown locally, when i was a nipper 50's & 60's especially all our food was grown in season and local, our eggs came from choocks kept naturally regularly we got double yokers and sometimes triples.

the local dairy many delivered unadulterated milk to our stainless steel billy each morning, our local farmer sold at the farm or came at least a couple times a week in his truck selling again unadulterated produce, his only spray was non systemic natural pyrethrum.

there was no long distance between us and the food we needed, which of course was climatic zone right, we had humble homes on 30 perch blocks of ground, there were banana plants and many fruit trees in back yards as well as gardens and own choocks, and hey enough room for kids to play as well.

and no deviat's.

sadly now as we over here go this inept carbon tax way our food is too far away to go to the farmer.

in those days the butcher only sold the best cuts, proper mince, proper sausages, no offal he gave bones away for the family dog, now they have all sorts of ways to sell nearly the whole animal to us in some adulterated way or other, animals fed lots aintibiotics and not grass grazed as they sued to be.

our local apple was a granny smith, mum would cut them open cut out the bowl moth damage around the seed and we got to eat a healthy unadulterated apple.

take care friends there are different times ahead, our farm land is being bought by foreign interests for their own food security or coal mines.

len

len:

You've pretty much identified the problem, and the problem is corporate and factory farming, done mega-scale, with little regard for the health and welfare of the animals involved (other than to shoot them up with antiobiotics and growth hormones to produce larger profits in the bottom line): and in the case of fruits and vegetables, to use an extraordinary amount of chemicals of all kinds to make it easy for the grower, but with TOTAL disregard for the health and welfare of the people who are intended to eat this junk.

If you live in a democracy, you can help change all this with your voice and your vote and your activism. Demand proper food. If your stores won't provide it, guarantee that you will buy it from those who WILL produce it. If you don't have farm markets or CSA's in your area, inititate their development--they're win/win, and the money stays in your local economy.

Ignorance is your enemy. In the U.S., the ignorance of the general public and the influx or corporate funding to provide misinformation and fan the flames of that ignorance is a winner for all the WRONG interests.

The local and organic food movements are being fought tooth and nail by factory farming interests who have the financial ability to influence legislation. No matter: there are people who want and will eat healthy food if it's made available, and therin lies the strength of the common man/woman--to control your own destiny by exercising your will and speaking your truths.

Gain strength and buying power with numbers. Speak to others who feel the same as you do, and convince organic growers that you'll buy their offerings when they've taken the time and effort to grow healthy food.

A new day is coming, but I don't believe it to be the pessimistic one you anticipate. The majority will rule; and if the majority is enlightened enough to know what healthy food is, we'll dam sure have healthy food.

No legislative leader will remain a leader for very long who ignores the majority of his constituents and supports legislation detrimental to their health.

thank you mary,

the apathy in the general public for me comes from we have given over out roots of belief for other material conquests, and until we can unite again as one family under that light we will fall as a divided people, not just the US but all countries that once embraced the truth.

all our food is not as safe as it could be/should be, so unless we can source naturally grown foods no dietary regime is any better than the other.

the best we can do is buy our fresh stuff from a shop that at least sells local grown produce, this we feel often has less chemical intervention. over here now those sunday markets there is almost no sellers of home grown F&V, most got to the local distribution market and buy from there to sell on. that is identical to what is in supermarkets only slightly cheaper.

we are divided in our secular societies.

yes the new day we anticipate will not be understood by many.

we will soon be on our new place and be once again be able to grow some of our own food.

blessings and take care

len

And here's the latest healthy offering for sale at your local supermarket--"Pink Slime" (and currently, the two most googled words on the internet).

How healthy?? Why, they're even feeding it to our school kids in the National School Lunch Program. Of course the kids' moms found out and ratted-out the USDA; so once they run out of the 7 million pounds they've ordered up for this Spring, you can choose whether you want Pink Slime for the Fall, or not.

http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/national/schools-can-take-pink-slime-off-the-menu-usda-announces-20120316

Don't worry about the adult supply of Pink Slime, however. 70% of all hamburger surveyed in (conventional) supermarkets still contains it.

Enjoy your slime.

This thread has the longest posts I have ever seen.

I eat my peas with honey.
I've done it all my life.
It makes my peas taste funny,
but it keeps them on my knife.

A short one for Kevinitis.
I like buckwheat honey.

i'm trying very hard to eat good food, but i'll never reach 100%, because the earth in not a good place right now. and there are just too many people to feed for "good " farming practices. "organically grown" often means black plastic is laid on the ground between the rows ! go figure-what's leaching from the plastic ? i collect rainwater off the roof for the veggies, and worry about the shingles leaching. but hey ! it's acid rain anyway. supplements ? they're tested for amount of product, but are they tested for impurities? and where are they made (china?). so i grow and freeze as much as i can, eat local and in season, have cut way back on meat and any fish larger than a sardine, and hope my children don't live to see a dying earth. and with all of this , i'm still HAPPY !
inform, inform others as much as possible. let them be bothered by the message, because all is not as it should be, and we all must change that. there are many deaf ears, but some do listen.....

Yes, Patty, all we can do is seek information, share it, and make the best decisions we can.