By Kailey Mentink

The longest winter I ever survived was the one where I caught a cold about every two to three weeks. I would sneeze and cough through one bout just to catch another a few weeks after the previous one had cleared up. It seemed like my immune system was acting much like a guard who is supposed to be watching a house but is instead greeting the “bad guys” at the door and welcoming them inside. Something obviously was wrong. Lots of people catch the common cold in the winter, but this was insane.

Involving children in the work of the house, teaching them new skills, and helping them to learn about healthy meal preparation from an early age will benefit the family and even more importantly the child in the long run.

This picture of Annika cooking eggs was taken last summer. I had been out milking and was feeling really behind because the milk cows had escaped during the storm in the night and chores had taken a long time. I was surprised to find Annika (age 7) with breakfast almost ready when I walked in the door with milk buckets in hand. That was a huge blessing and relief that morning.

For Every Pest There are 1700 beneficials. Imagine what would happen if we started encouraging more beneficials?

They’ve destroyed so much of our food supply, and when you eat cheap, nutrition-deficient processed food laced with synthetic chemicals and agricultural poisons, there’s simply no way you’re going to be able to maintain good health.
For decades, the processed food industry has defended sugar as a harmless substance that provides crucial energy (calories). All calories are the same, they claim, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary. But as harmful as excess sugar is, I am firmly convinced that processed seed oils are exponentially worse — in my estimation a 10 times greater driver of chronic disease than sugar is.

Dr. Mercola

No strain of rat or mice is naturally obese, so the scientists have to create them. They make these morbidly obese creatures by infecting them with monosodium glutamate (MSG) when they are first born. The MSG triples the amount of insulin the pancreas creates, causing rats to become obese. MSG creates a lesion in the hypothalamus that correlates with abnormal developments, including obesity, short stature, and sexual reproduction problems. MSG has also been shown to kill brain cells as well as to cause nausea, vomiting, migraine headaches, depression, and heart problems.

Ty Bollinger

The good news is that we can buy clean ingredients that are raised without chemicals and make delicious foods from scratch that are satisfying, delicious, and energy promoting! The best way to source these ingredients is to grow them yourself. The next best way is to find a local farmer you trust.

When scientists want to make rats obese, they give them MSG. Did you know that MSG is in many food products including some organic products? The food industry loves it, because it can make us crave their foods and not feel satisfied, so we buy more. Basically, we are the rats! I touched on MSG back when we were getting our spices right, but I recently learned that MSG is in organic creamed soups, and I really felt led to dedicate a whole week to this issue. You may think you are avoiding MSG by buying products that say MSG free, or if you don’t see it on the label, but even those products can have this hidden under other ingredients including spice which most people would think of as natural spices.