Today I read in the Huffington Post that Asda has recently launched the Wonky Veg Box. This is a box of vegetables that do not look perfect, so they would normally not easily get sold. So they put it in a box and sell it for the price of £3,50, yes, you read that right £3,50. This box has enough in there to feed a family of 4 for a whole week. That is a lot of food for just £3,50.
I usually am not a big fan of Asda as they tend to have a lot of junk in their isles and lots of cheap stuff. But this move really made them score points in my book. I may actually try one of them in the coming weeks. We usually have a vegetable box every week, but I really would like to see what is in this box as I really like the way this is done. Vegetables that are usually not sold as they are wonky can now go to low income families who can eat a whole lot healthier this way than they might otherwise do.
There is a whole big list of Asda stores that sell them on their website.
This is the image that Asda uses for their box on their website. Looks quite good to me. Love the cucumbers :-)
Often enough my home grown vegetables look similar or worse.
As we home educate in a Waldorf style way, I like to read about Waldorf educating. A couple of years ago I read about The Waldorf library. Since then I have regularly downloaded a book or 2 there to read. It is a lovely library. So many very interesting books. I would love to read the majority of them, but I'm sure I cannot do so any more in this life unfortunately. My reading list seems to grow with every book I read, on which ever topic, as there are often lots of nice books mentioned in the reading list :-)
Rudolf Steiner
There are also journals and articles to be found there. Some you can also download. http://www.waldorflibrary.org/index.php There is also a wonderful website on which you can download books to listen to. I really like that website as well, as sometimes for long walks with the dog, or a long road trip it can be great to simply listen to a book which has been read to me. The person reading the books has a very nice voice. http://www.rudolfsteineraudio.com Enjoy all the reading and listening that you can do :-)
Today I read a newspaper article in the Guardian about Female Genital Mutilation. It was horrifying. Part of the text says the following:
"FGM: number of victims found to be 70 million higher than thought. Half of girls and women cut live in just three countries as Unicef statistics reveal shocking global scale of barbaric ritual"
This article made me think about quite a few things that I think need to change before anything substantial will change with regards to this topic. I am very seriously against genital mutilation of any sort, women or men. The fact that there is such a strong push to globally stop genital mutilation of girls and women, but there is no push to stop genital mutilation of boys and men, is discrimination against men. The message is in certain parts of the world that it is good for men and women for men to get mutilated, that it prevents STD's and such. I have read a lot about this topic over the last years and no, it is not good for men and women, and it does not prevent STD's in any way. Condoms prevent STD's. Mutilated men are less likely to use condoms as their sensitivity has been tampered with, due to the mutilation. Many mutilated men have in the long term erection problems. Many men have ended up with a botched mutilation, which makes matters even worse, sometimes to the point where sex is nigh impossible. There are a many very, very good articles out there on this topic. Here are a selection of the ones that I consider the best: http://www.drmomma.org/2009/09/history-of-female-circumcision-in.html http://www.drmomma.org/2011/04/male-and-female-circumcision.html http://www.drmomma.org/2009/10/male-circumcision-hurts-women.html http://www.circumcision.org/harmswomen.htm I am convinced that as long as male genital mutilation keeps getting promoted as being a good thing and does not get forbidden, as it should be, female genital mutilation laws will not get taken serious. When it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander. It all gets done because this is how "we" do things and this is how "we" have always done it. Nothing will change unless both get the same treatment and men stop being discriminated against in this field. Late last year a court case in the USA was fought between an opposing mother and and father who was pro mutilating the genitals of his son. The father won. The boy got mutilated. He was 4 or 5. As long as this stuff can happen, FGM will not stop and will not be taken seriously. Both procedures are damaging humans, physically and psychologically. It has to stop. I think it is quite perverse to even consider cutting people's genitals because it is custom or such. It is sickening to me to even consider anyone messing about with the most sensitive parts of any small human being, as usually they are children who are the victims of the procedure. Children cannot give consent to a procedure like that and it a life time punishment. Why did people start doing it? Why can they not see how awful it is? There is a LOT of research out there showing no benefit whatsoever from the procedure. In some countries they are trying to find benefits and keep repeating myths to prove the so-called benefits. I'm just horrified by the whole thing and am every day thankful to live in an area of the world where neither MGM nor FGM are the norm.
In 2014 I joined a test knit of Linda Dawkins for the Marin the Horse pattern. I finished one of them, as was the plan, but then one of my other children wanted to have a horse like that as well, which was quite understandable as it is a very cute horse. So I started making the other one, but then family issues happened, so I didn't manage to finish it. It ended up in a box due to moving short after that. Upon arrival in our house we found it to be left in an appalling state by our tenant, so it stayed in a box. Only recently I ended up being able to take it out and finish it.
The first picture is of the first horse. The second one of the horse I finished last weekend. I have use Hjertegarn Incawool for these 2 projects, these are self striping yarns and they give a lovely look to the treasured softies :-)
Through this link you can buy the pattern if you would like: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/marin-the-spring-horse
Here you can see the blog post of Linda about the pattern of the horse: http://www.naturalsuburbia.com/2014/04/marin-spring-horse-pattern-finished.html
Recently I read a few blog posts from one of my favourite bloggers, Mommypotamus. She writes about the MTHFR gene mutation. It is well worth a read.
Here the posts are that I read:
Quote
I’ll admit, I thought it was the first time I read it, but as it turns out it’s something much more important. MTHFR is an abbreviation for a genetic mutation that affects 30-50% of our population, although most of us don’t know whether or not we have it.
If you tuned out in high school biology and need a refresher on how genes work, here’s the deal:
Your body contains 50 trillion tiny cells, and almost every one of them contains the complete set of instructions for making you. These instructions are encoded in your DNA . . . If you imagine your DNA as a cookbook, then your genes are the recipes. (source)
Unquote
Read further at:
http://www.mommypotamus.com/mthfr-mutation/
The next one is:
Quote Daddypotamus: I know you’re tired. Let’s just stop at Taco Bell or McDonald’s for dinner.
Me (laughing): Stop.
Katie: Daddy, why are you saying that? Those aren’t real places!
It wasn’t intentional, but somehow Katie was six years old before she realized these places really do exist. We’ve done our best to nourish them from the start, and we are very careful about what goes into their little bodies.
I used to believe that was enough. With areal food dietand minimal supplementation to make up for things like soil depletion, our family would thrive.
Unquote
Read further at:
http://www.mommypotamus.com/mthfr-gene-mutation-faq/
In the first post she refers to the website of Dr. Lynch who is an expert in the field.
In the following post he lists the health issues that could likely be related to the MTHFR gene mutation.
