Green Up Saturday

First things first..tonight is Earth Hour!

8:30pm local time (your local time).

We'll be participating here in our little corner of the Garden State, and

we hope you will all be joining us!

Need ideas of activities? How about a rousing game of flashlight tag

in the backyard? Or, a walk around your neighborhood by flashlight.

Too cold, or wet where you are? How about shadow theatre on the wall

using your hands and a flashlight? Like this...http://www.shadow-puppets.com/

Now, you are all wondering what you can do today to help make the world a better

place between now and 8:30 pm....how about a little activism?

Have you ever heard of Milk Protein Concentrates?

Honestly, until recently,I had not. According to several food/environment/consumer watch groups,these unregulated imports of cheap milk protein concentrates are driving down the price of domestically produced milk and putting American dairy farmers out of business. No one in the government is checking to make sure that they're safe to eat, and now the FDA is considering an industry proposal to change the "standard of identity" of yogurt to allow for the use of MPCs. This change would mean that even while U.S. dairy farmers are facing historically low prices, more of their milk could get displaced by imports - and that consumers will be faced with this unregulated ingredient in yet another food.
MPCs are made by putting milk through an ultra-filtration process to remove all of the liquid and all of the smaller molecules, including the minerals. What is left is a dry substance that is high in protein and used as an additive in products like processed cheeses, frozen dairy desserts, crackers and energy bars. Because MPCs are a dry powder, they can be shipped long distances very cheaply, and almost all of the dry MPCs used in America are imported.MPCs have never been tested enough to make the list of food ingredients FDA considers to be safe - and they are not allowed in some dairy products that have regulations on how they are made.

What is a consumer to do?Tell the FDA that you don't want MPCs in your yogurt

http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/t/741/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26944

Two things that tick me off, companies trying to put crud in my food, and

companies messing with our Farmers.