http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HD3u5YWdWLw#at=13
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Pet food recall: Sweeping recall affects food for cats, dogs, and ferrets Natura is recalling all pet food manufactured before last week. The recall includes all Innova, California Natural, EVO, Healthwise, Mother Nature, and Karma branded dry pet food and treats.
By Liz Fuller-Wright, Correspondent / June 18, 2013 Natura is recalling all bags of Innova brand cat food and dog food, as well as all bags of California Natural, EVO, Healthwise, Mother Nature, and Karma branded dry pet food and treats.
Natura is issuing a massive pet food recall after the FDA found salmonella in one of their products. They are recalling pet food from all of their product lines, including food for dogs, cats, and ferrets.
While a single positive test for a contaminant usually leads to a limited recall, just covering a few days’ worth of pet food production, Natura has chosen to recall everything produced more than a week ago, when they implemented additional product testing procedures. “We are taking the additional precautionary measure,” the employees announced in a press release, because “our first priority is the wellbeing of the pets we serve.” If your animal is showing symptoms of stomach distress, you should seek immediate treatment for your pet. The recall includes all Innova, California Natural, EVO, Healthwise, Mother Nature, and Karma branded dry pet food and biscuit treats with expiration dates prior to June 10, 2014. The expiration date appears in different places on the various products.
To find out where to look for your pet food’s expiration date, see the illustrated guide on the Natura website. If you own any of the recalled pet food, dispose of it immediately, but not before you clip key information off the bag. To get a full refund, you need to fill out this form and mail it to Natura with the UPC label, expiration date, and product code cut from the pet food bag. For further information, you can contact the company online or by calling (800) 224-6123.
I’m telling you that cat could drink and drive!!
I never forget this kitty, nor any of them really, but she was such a great kitty cat who spent her 18 years with me. Saw her eyes open. She was so utterly cool, she told me I seriously needed cool lessons. Sadly I never had time!
Happy Birthday!! Somewhere in Cat heaven there is a kitty who is very missed down here!!
June 14th, it’s a very good day! Enjoy the day and may a wonderful cat cross your path!
When someone goes out and does good deeds it just warms my heart. Especially when it involves foreign made garments in unhealthy living standards.
Enjoy!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=O95DBxnXiSo#!
World
Bangladesh honors the 1,100 dead from building collapse
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Thousands of mourners gathered Tuesday at the wreckage of a Bangladeshi garment factory building to offer prayers for the souls of the 1,127 people who died in the structure’s collapse last month, the worst tragedy in the history of the global garment industry.
The Islamic prayer service was held a day after the army ended a nearly three-week, painstaking search for bodies among the rubble and turned control of the site over to the civilian government for cleanup.
Recovery workers got a shocking boost Friday when they pulled a 19-year-old seamstress alive from the wreckage. But most of their work entailed removing corpses that were so badly decomposed from the heat they could only be identified if their cellphones or work IDs were found with them. The last body was found Sunday night.
Soldiers in camouflage, police and firefighters in uniform stood solemnly in neat rows near relatives of the dead. Many of the rescue workers had pained expressions on their faces. Tears rolled down the cheeks of one soldier.
The mourners raised their cupped hands in prayer and asked for the salvation of those who lost their lives when the Rana Plaza building came crashing down on April 24. They also appealed for divine blessings for the injured still in the hospital.
Maj. Gen. Chowdhury Hasan Suhrawardy, the military commander who had been supervising the site, thanked all those involved in the work. He said the army has prepared a list of 1,000 survivors that it would give to the government with the recommendation they be provided jobs on a priority basis.
The tragedy came months after a fire at another Bangladesh garment factory killed 112 workers.
With global pressure mounting on Bangladesh and the brands it manufactures for, some of the biggest Western retailers have embraced a plan that would require them to pay for factory improvements here.
Italian fashion brand Benetton, British retailer Marks & Spencer and Spanish retailer Mango became the latest companies Tuesday to agree to sign a contract requiring them to conduct independent safety inspections of factories and cover the costs of repairs. The pact also calls for retailers to pay up to $500,000 a year toward the effort and to stop doing business with any factory that refuses to make safety improvements.
Swedish retailing giant H&M, the biggest purchaser of garments from Bangladesh; British companies Primark and Tesco; C&A of the Netherlands; and Spain’s Inditex, owner of the Zara chain, announced on Monday they would sign the pact.
Two other companies agreed to sign last year: PVH, which makes clothes under the Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and Izod labels, and German retailer Tchibo. Among the big holdouts are Wal-Mart Stores, which is the second-largest producer of clothing in Bangladesh, and Gap.
Gap, which had been close to signing the agreement last year, said Monday that the pact is “within reach,” but the company is concerned about the possible legal liability involved.
Worker rights groups have set a Wednesday deadline for companies to accept the agreement, saying they will increase pressure on brands that do not.
“This agreement is exactly what is needed to finally bring an end to the epidemic of fire and building disasters that have taken so many lives in the garment industry in Bangladesh,” said Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, one of the organizations pushing for the agreement.
Bangladesh has about 5,000 garment factories and 3.6 million garment workers. It is the third-biggest exporter of clothes in the world, after China and Italy.
Working conditions in the $20 billion industry are grim, a result of government corruption, desperation for jobs, and industry indifference. Minimum wages for garment workers are among the lowest in the world at 3,000 takas ($38) a month.
On Monday, Bangladesh’s Cabinet approved an amendment lifting restrictions on forming unions in most industries, government spokesman Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said. The old 2006 law required workers to obtain permission before they could unionize. The day before, the government set up a new minimum wage board that will issue recommendations to the Cabinet for pay raises for garment workers.
Government officials also have promised improvements in safety in an industry where at least 1,800 people have been killed in factory fires or building collapses since 2005.
Bangladesh’s government has in recent years cracked down on unions attempting to organize garment workers. In 2010 the government launched an Industrial Police force to crush street protests by thousands of workers demanding better pay and working conditions.
Found this article on Linkedin at one of my eco friendly groups. Stop, think and remember: If our garbage were placed in our own backyard, how much differently (consciously) would you live? ;-)
Posted on May 30, 2012 in Water Conservation by Matthew Speer
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a true testament to the ignorance of our modern world when it comes to the environment around us. As you take a swig from the BPA laced plastic water bottle that was brought back from the grocery store in a single use plastic bag, think about what happens when they are both tossed away. This discarded plastic and other litter often ends up in our oceans and thanks to strong ocean and wind currents it creates an enormous mass of floating plastic spanning thousands of miles. The lifestyle of wasteful convenience experienced in America and other industrialized nations has allowed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to grow at an estimated hundred-fold in the past four decades.
The Pacific Ocean has become the world’s largest landfill in an area known as the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. This area boasts a slow moving group of spiral currents that create an oceanic desert with very little sea life. These currents also create an odd side effect, collecting floating trash from around the globe and focusing it in this one region. According to studies by the United Nations Environment program, it is estimated that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of plastic, an alarming figure that has likely grown since the 2006 study. A significant portion of this garbage consists of small particles of plastic floating just beneath the surface, this makes measurements more difficult. Based on sampling data it is estimated that the Great Pacific Garbage path could make up 8.1 percent of the entire Pacific Ocean or 5,800,000 million square miles.
The infamous Japanese Tsunami caused enormous amounts of damage and ravaged the island nation, washing homes, businesses and lives out to sea. The debris from this tragedy is now caught up in the Pacific’s currents and is beginning accumulate, adding to the already littered Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The trash that isn’t stuck in the currents has also begun to wash up on the west coast of the United States in places such as Oregon, Washington and Alaska.
The obsession we have with single use plastics and other non-reusable items is the root cause for a large portion of this mess. Prevention is really the only logical step we can take at this point as clean-up measures would prove implausible. Instead we should implement some basic methods that can help curb the rapid growth of the debris field, allowing Mother Nature to work on cleaning up our existing mess. The following tips can help you take action in preventing the spread of the Great Pacific Garbage patch and help create a sustainable earth at the same time.
- Ditch the Plastic Water Bottles: Two million plastic water bottles are used in the United States every five minutes. The water bottles are known to be laced with BPA which can cause birth defects and weight gain. Grab a reusable water bottle to help you stay healthy and go green by reducing the plastics tossed away. Buy a reusable water bottle now.
- Take Your Own Bags: I never did understand the plastic bag concept, reusing bags just made sense economically and for the planet. By taking your own reusable shopping bags you can reduce the litter from finding its way into the ocean and lower the supermarkets operating costs, which could be passed to you in savings. Find reusable shopping bags on Amazon now.
- Travel on Cruise Lines with Ocean Friendly Policies: Up to 20 percent of the trash found in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is thought to be related to ships dumping trash. Many of the top tier cruise lines are no adhering to strict “no dumping” and recycling policies. This is great for business as the cruise line industry relies on a clean ocean to draw passengers on board.
I am a father of three and I often wonder what shape the planet will be in when we pass it along to the next generations. The Great Pacific Garbage, sadly, was preventable, though our desire for convenience and money led us to poor decision making over the past few decades. Let’s take a lesson from our previous generations and think about using products that last and put our kids first, not our portfolio.
So folks, remember “Be the Change” you wish to see.
Salut!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHqD16s-jNE
Give Natalie Holmes a big round of applause! It’s a perfect day.
Remember to support the arts and the artists who make us smile and tap our feet!!
Enjoy the day and may sunshine warm your homes and hearts!
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
Sláinte agus táinte!
Pssst it’s easy being green! ;-)
We all know how much I love soup in the winter months and I found YET another keeper! This was so perfect and I didn’t even use the “variety” pack of mushrooms. There was such a sale on plain old regular, that I dived in and just made it with one toadstool ;-). Can’t even imagine how delicious this would be with three different kinds of mushrooms.
This came together in minutes, especially if you lay out all the ingredients in the morning, albeit the dairy, and come home from work and put together. You will have smiles all around. Serve with a warm baguette and salad. Comfort food all the way.
Here’s all you do:
Homemade Mushroom Soup
courtesy of Season with Spice and Art and the Kitchen
Ingredients:
- 2 cups fresh mushrooms – cleaned and chopped (A variety if you choose)
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic – finely chopped
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 – 2 bay leaf
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
- 1 tbsp flour dissolved in 1 tbsp water
- Salt to taste
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 cup milk
- Dash of nutmeg
- Fresh ground black pepper to taste
- Fresh parsley or thyme for garnish
Instructions:
- Heat olive oil in a sauce pan. Add butter and lightly sauté garlic on medium heat.
- Add in mushrooms, thyme, bay leaf and Worcestershire sauce. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes, or until the moisture from the mushrooms disappears.
- Add in chicken broth. Stir occasionally until broth boils, then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Add diluted flour in, and stir constantly (while simmering) until the mixture thickens. Season with salt and nutmeg. Taste and adjust seasoning.
- Finally, add milk and heavy cream, and bring to a simmer. Turn heat off.
- Serve hot in your soup bowl. Add freshly ground black pepper. Garnish with fresh parsley or thyme if you have them on hand.
I baked some home made sesame seed bread with flax seeds and molasses. YUM!! Utter comfort!
Bon Appétit!
Documentary on GMO Trees. There has to be a way to stop this. Please view and pass around.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w437uQf_A7c
Smile and make someone happy ;-)
You might be the one to make their Whole Day!
Our Valentine Aprons are going to be at market this week. Come check out the beautiful, fully reversible sweet hotty Aprons!! ;-)
Photos available week of January 27th.
Kiss Kiss!
Wag and Woof!
