It’s about time. I finally got around to fixing the family blog. Everyone’s site is now back up and running as well as the main family site at www.silberblog.com. I’ve added a calendar of events, if you have any upcoming events please email me and I’ll add them.

This weather is amazing. It is truly beautiful. It’s nice to be back. I’ve only seen a couple people as of this writing but a bunch of us are going out for Bri’s birthday later tonite (I think we’ll be dining at California Pizza Kitchen).

Tomorrow I’ll probably go the mall and do some shopping with Bri and maybe I’ll buy her a present for her birthday if she’s lucky. Sunday morning I’ll play a little basketball at Delphi if Brian and pick me up. I still need to go to the beach, I’m way to white. I’ve been eating at the FH which is always fun.

I’ll be here until the 20th then back to Aspen for a week or so and back to Florida again until summer.

P.S. Barry Bonds is so guilty.

There’s a new food blog in town and I’m going to be writing for it. You can find it at www.wellfed.net/fitfare. We just went live yesterday so give it a little while to get up and running. I’ll probably have an article once a week or so and I think my first will be tomorrow. Check it out.

I’ve been meaning to read “Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal” by Eric Schlosser for quite awhile now. I finally got around to it earlier this week. It’s an amazing book and quite an eye opener. It delves much further into the intentions and interests of the fast food industry than other books on the same subject such as “Don’t Eat This Book” by Morgan Spurlock. A few interesting points from the book follow.

“A typical artificial strawberry flavor, like the kind found in a Burger King strawberry milk shake, contains the following ingredients: amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, anethol, anisyl formate, benzyl acetate, benzyl isobutyrate, butyric acid, cinnamyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil, diacetyl, dipropyl ketone, ethyl acetate, ethyl amylketone, ethyl butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl heptylate, ethyl lactate, ethyl methylphenylglycidate, ethyl nitrate, ethyl propionate, ethyl valerate, heliotropin, hydroxyphrenyl-2-butanone (10 percent solution in alcohol), a-ionone, 4-methylacetophenone, methyl anthranilate, methyl benzoate, methyl cinnamate, methyl heptine carbonate, methyl naphthyl ketone, methyl salicylate, mint essential oil, neroli essential oil, nerolin, neryl isobutyrate, orris butter, phenethyl alcohol, rose, rum ether, y-undecalactone, vanillin, and solvent.” - Page 125

Wow, that’s alot of crap just to make something taste like strawberries. Here’s an idea….why not use strawberries. Do you know what you’re putting in your body?

“About 75 percent of the cattle in the United States were routinely fed livestock wastes - the rendered remains of dead sheep and dead cattle - until August of 1997. They were also fed millions of dead cats and dead dogs every year, purchased from animal shelters. The FDA banned such practices. Nevertheless, current FDA regulations allow dead pigs and dead horses to be rendered into cattle feed, along with dead poultry. The regulations not only allow cattle to be fed dead poultry, they allow poultry to be fed dead cattle.” - Page 202

“Cattle blood is still put into cattle feed these days.” - Page 202

“About 3 million pounds of chicken manure were fed to cattle in 1994.” - Page 202

That’s just disgusting. Aren’t cattle, and poultry for that matter, by definition herbivores? Why then are they being fed the remains of cattle, sheep, poultry, cats and dogs? The simple answer is of course money. Using this diet the cattle gain mass at 4 times the rate of normally fed cattle.

“Today about 44 million American adults are obese. An additional 6 million are “super-obese”; they weigh about a hundred pounds more than they should.” - Page 240

“In 1991, only four states had obesity rates of 15 percent or higher; today thirty-seven states do.” - Page 240

44 million Americans are around 50 pounds overweight! 50 pounds is a lot of weight and 44 million people is a lot of people. 6 million Americans are 100 pounds overweight, 100 pounds. That’s 50 million Americans who have put their health at risk from over-eating and under-exercising.

“Every month 90 percent of the children in the United States eat at McDonald’s.” - Page 262

People, they market to children for a reason. They know if they can get them enjoying their food from an early age they will associate it with childhood and “comfort,” and have a customer for life. You do not have to take your children to fast food restaurants. Prepare meals and healthy snacks in advance.

If you have not, please read this book. Even if you eat healthy yourself it gives you more information to spread to others. Ignorance is not bliss.

…can you find a McDonald’s with a fireplace and leather chairs.