Maybe when/if the EU passes their food ID/tracking/shipping system they won't have an army of misinformed people demanding the law be stopped because it lets Monsanto arrest your grandma for giving away lettuce...or whatever piece of misinformation some chain email or blog is pushing. This whole guessing game has already cost a conservative estimate of about 1/4-1/2 billion dollars and they don't even know what to look for yet. They have a slew of sick people and common foods, but the supply chain from farm to fork is muddled. They're on their 3rd false "probable suspect" last I checked. Every false positive is another hit to an entire crop and it's sales.

I think you and your children should still be able to go out and enjoy your back yard even with the birds there. After all, they built the nest at what they felt was a safe location while you were around, didn't they? I always heard that if you touched the eggs or the babies that the parents would abandon the nest, but I know that's not true. A couple years ago we had a nest of bluebirds in a birdhouse in the front yard. I walked out and looked at it every day. But one day I saw what looked like a blue jay's tail sticking out of the door. I touched it and it didn't move. I opened the door and found that the jay had tried to kill the bluebird babies and become stuck in the door and suffocated. I'm not sure how long he had been in there but the babies looked very lethargic. I removed them and gathered several grasshoppers and hand fed the babies for a couple of hours while keeping a watch for the bluebird parents. After about two hours I saw them sitting high up on a branch and looking down at the nest box. I replaced the bluebird babies and waited for the parents to return. It only took them about 15 minutes and they were hard at work gathering bugs and food for their babies, all four of them. I was very relieved because I wasn't sure how long I could have kept up the pace. Anyway, as soon as they could the parents resumed caring for the babies and in about two weeks the babies left the nest and flew away. We have several pairs of bluebirds who nest in our yard every year and sometimes nature can be very cruel. But it felt good to save those birds. Incidentally, I didn't touch the babies themselves, but removed the nest intact with the babies in it. I also didn't handle the grasshopers with my hands, but caught them with a net, and pulled them apart and fed the babies with tweezers. To wake the sleeping babies, I lightly touched the edge of the nest with the tweezers and they'd all sit up in the classic hungry baby stance. Anyway, it was a rewarding experience when the parents came back to the babies and started feeding them again. And I'm sure it would take more than some friendly people in the back yard below them, to firghten your robins away. And your presence could possible help them to avoid the tragedy of a marauding jay or cat. Cheryl

I've been successfully taking oregano oil by North American Spice Company for any type of bacterial, viral, or fungal infection since 2005. I first heard about it on a show called Know the Cause. Then my friend started talking about it getting rid of a wart on her foot that shed been fighting forever. I had a rock hard bumP on my toe and figured it would be a corn (sorry, I know this is probably gross) it had been there for about a year and I kept forgetting to ask my dr. and I bought a generic brand of oregano oil, and Rubbed a drop on. By the the end of the day it was almost gone. It didn't vanish completely in 2 days with that brand, so I bought the more well known brand, and used it for a day and it was gone. I had was hit with a bad case of strep throat shOrtly after on a weekend (I can diagnose myself, I've had tonsil ides, and strep throat enough to tell the difference) and rather than go to the ER I had my husband stop at the local health food store and get me a bottle of oregano oil. All our tiny store had was the pill form of North Americsn Spice Company brand. I already had the bought a book written by Dr Cass Ingram called the cure is in the cupboard so that helped me to know how much oregano oil I should take bi think I took a pill every hour for the first day. Within a day 24 hours I felt completely fine and I will tell you with synthetic anitibotics it takes me 3-5 days. It is effective on colds also that normally have to run their coarse. We can be completely over a cold in 1/2 the time as anybody stricken with a cold at the same time. My husband, kids and I have been using it successfully since then, and rarely go the Dr anymore. 3 of my friends use it, and 1 of those friends is a doctor. My sister, who is married to a pharmacist, uses it. Many of you have probably heard of it, or already use it, but for anyone who hasn't I wanted to explain the benefits thoroughly. Sorry so long. I probably should have said it is a powerful natural antibiotic and the first time I saw it on Know The Cause, the were touting that it had been successful in killing the bird flu in laboratory testing. I believe them. Dr. Ingram and Doug kaufmann (Know The Cause) Often appear at the "Health Food Center" on Penn in Okc, to answer questions about it and other natural health products. I would follow up by saying that anytime I take a hefty dose of oil of oregano, I always take some type of probiotic from the health food store. You can now sometimes find probiotics in a pharmacy as more people are becoming aware of the importance and the body's general need for probiotics. My brother in law who graduated from pharmacy school about 3 years ago mentioned to me that I should follow up with a probiotic after using any type of antibiotic, to help your body good bacteria replenish itself from being wiped out by the antibiotic. So I was surprised that they are promoting the use of probiotics now, because I had never had a dr. or pharmacists mention such a thing to me before. I think western medicine is slowly catching on. I just hope the pharmaceutical companies really don't gain control over all of the natural health medicines we now have the right to use.

Posted by anthony_toronto (My Page) on Fri, Jul 6, 07 at 0:47 I remember seeing a CNN news story some years back about a study on organic vs. non-organic fruits and vegetables. I know they were not looking for differences in flavanoids, but they were looking at taste, and whether non-organic fruits and veggies retained any traces of pesticides or other non-organic compounds. The results of that study were that there were no differences between organic vs. non-organic in terms of either taste or in residual pesticides, etc. So, non-organic fruits and veggies were not found to be less healthy than organic fruits and veggies. HOWEVER, the study did find that, because of typical organic gardening techniques, the organic fruits and vegetables had a far higher concentration of e-coli bacteria from fecal matter used as fertilizer. The study determined that eating organic fruits and vegetables was far more dangerous that eating non-organic fruits and vegetable. I have always been less concerned about the effects of the using the blue stuff (which I'm sorry really does not seem materially different in any way as an effective fertilizer) than I have been with growing my tomatoes in feces. Oh well, maybe e-coli is not a problematic substance to consume. That was a John Stossel report on ABC, and they rescinded some of their statements (one or two, as I recall), as well as the conclusion that was drawn that non-organically grown produce was healthier than organically grown.