The Rescued Easter Sunday Dove...

I've never been a believer of 'old wives tales' until my husband and I experienced first hand, what we learned months later, was an 'old wives tale', predicting a death in a person's family.

Our strange event started on Easter Sunday in April 2009. Our 'paired off' always together cats, Leroy Brown and Loretta Lynn Brown, were sitting together at the large patio door window that looks out on our back porch/patio, and into our backyard. neither cat had been out in the yard on that day because we were too busy to take them out. We never allowed our cats to roam freely where we live because there are too many dangers for cats, here in the rural area we live in. Owls and other predatory birds can attack a cat as well as raccoons and possums, which eye cats as delicious treats.

When Leroy and Loretta would go out into their yard to partake of the sunshine and fresh grass, either my husband or I would stay with them, and when we would go back inside the house, the cats would always go back inside with us.

On this particular Easter Sunday both cats, were watching out the patio window, and they started yowling, I said yowling, not meowing. I rushed to where my cats were seated next to the window/door to find that they were both looking at a small grayish, brownish bundle that was huddled against one of the pillars that supports our patio's roof.



I cautiously opened the patio door, preventing the curious Leroy and Loretta Lynn from exiting the house, and I approached the small bundle. The bundle turned out to be a very frightened bird, a dove, and this was happening on Easter Sunday afternoon. As a Christian I believe that the dove is symbolic of the Holy Ghost, the third part of the Blessed Trinity, and it was Easter Sunday.

I called to my husband to come outside, and he responded. It wasn't the first time we were presented with rescuing a bird in distress but it was the first time we were presented with a dove that needed our help, and it was Easter Sunday afternoon.

The first thing my husband wanted to try was to see if the bird could fly away on its own but we both realized that the little bird was having a difficult time breathing. It was taking its' breaths in gasps. So the breathing issue would have to be resolved first. My husband asked me to bring him a saucer of fresh water, which I did do.

He held the tiny bird in his hand, and dipped its' beak into the water, quickly bringing it up and out of the water within a second. He rubbed the tiny doves' throat to massage it's esophagus, which is the passage through which food travels, The bird coughed, and out from its' throat flew a large seed that had been caught in it's esophagus. The bird started breathing better; it stopped gasping for breath. We figured that the crisis was over, and all the bird needed was to have the seed evacuated from it's throat, and it would be ready to fly away. But this didn't happen. The tiny bird didn't fly away.

We both stayed with the bird for at least a half hour coaching it to fly away but it didn't want to leave us. So my husband asked me to get one of our cat carrier cages from the garage, and I did this putting a clean towel into the cage. My husband put the tiny bundle of feathers into this cage, and he carried the cage into our garage where the contents would be safe from predators. We placed a large, clean towel over the cage to prevent drafts. And we told the dove, "Good night, we will be back in the morning."

Early the next morning, at 6:00 am my husband and I both went into the garage to check on our rescued bird, and when we removed the towel covering the cage the dove let out with a loud coo, coo. That sound to us was a sign that the little creature was feeling much better so we brought the cage outside where we opened the cage, and encouraged the dove to fly away. Once again it couldn't, wouldn't fly away.
We realized at this time that we needed professional intervention to rescue this little bundle of feathers. It was Monday morning, and at 9:00 am I got onto the phone, and called someone I knew that was connected to the local Audubon society. He didn't know where I should take the bird but he was sure that one of the local vets was a wild bird, rescue doctor. I then called several local veterinarians in the Hollister area until I found Doctor Moran, who was the local bird rescue person. The clinic where this doctor is located is the Family Pet Care Center located on East Street here in Hollister. I wrote down the address of this clinic, and called confirming with the clinic that my husband would be bringing in a wild dove that needed professional attention.

Doctor Moran did what he could do for the little bird. He found puncture wounds under the feathers, and confirmed that the dove had a systemic infection, which was the result of some animal mauling it the day before. He gave the little dove a shot of antibiotics, and hoped for the best. The dove didn't make it. It's infection was too far-gone, and the little ball of feathers passed away at the veterinarian's office. I was thankful that my cats had nothing to do with the injury that happened to the dove. Instead they alerted me to the presence of the dove on our back porch. And this caused my husband and I to help the little bird. We thought the issue of the dove that needed to be rescued was over but it wasn't over.

Last spring we had two pairs of doves that would come into our yard, and feast at a seed box that we were keeping on our patio. The injured dove we took to Dr. Moran on East Street was one of these doves. For weeks after this event one of the remaining doves, the mate to the one that died at the vets, would return to our yard, and walk around our patio cooing. This behavior was un-nerving because it showed us that this bird, this little bird was looking for it's mate, and the last place it knew it's mate was before it disappeared, was in our yard. One day, about ten days later after we brought the dove to the vets, I was watching this single dove from my patio window, and I saw it go up to our back garage door, and stand there cooing at the door. This told me how sensitive doves are for this one to realize that we had kept it's mate in our garage after we found it on our back porch, back on Easter Sunday.

Two weeks after we rescued the dove, and took it to Dr. Moran's office where it passed away from an untreatable infection, we noticed that our beautiful deep green leaved bush that would bear deep purple berries in the summer, appeared to be dying. We paid extra attention to the bush, and watered it as it should be watered. Not too much and not too little water was given to this bush. It was spring, and in spring this bush always grew a fresh crop of deep green leaves because it lost all of it's leaves during the winter months. Even though we were especially diligent in caring for our bush the new leaves continued to dry up, dying and turning brown. In time all of the new 'spring' leaves on this bush turned into brown, crinkly, dead leaves.

This bush was located in a plot of earth, next to our back porch, right across from the pillar where we found the huddled, bundle of feathers that was the frightened, injured dove that came to us on Easter Sunday, in April, and died from a systemic infection at the vets office.



It was in early July of the same year when we discovered that our beloved cat, Leroy Brown had a lump in the area of his mouth that could be felt under his chin. The lump turned out to be a salivary gland cancer that was growing under his tongue. Leroy's veterinarian, Dr. White, was ill and was not available to care for Leroy at this time. We had to find another vet, and we took Leroy to Dr. Leroux at the Hollister Veterinary Clinic on Sunnyslope Drive. We thought that we were doing the right thing.

Leroy Brown Dutra died unexpectedly in Dr. Leroux's veterinary clinic after undergoing his third successful surgery on September 18, 2009. Dr. Leroux made it clear to us that Leroy didn't die from the cancer he was fighting, and he didn't die from the surgery. A woman, who worked for Dr. Leroux, allowed Leroy to jump from his cage, and then she chased our dear Leroy around the clinic, two hours after his surgery. Chasing our cat when he was still under the effect of anesthesia was what killed him.

When we were considering where Leroy's grave should be we found that the berry bush that died in our garden was now just a skeleton of black, bare branches, and no longer had a root structure. This bush was located just across from where we found the dove that needed our help, on Easter Sunday morning. it was easy to remove the now dead berry bush; as soon as my husband started to dig the bush up, it just lifted out of the ground. This patch of earth where the berry bush had been became our Leroy's grave.

On Leroy's grave we have placed a memorial for him that is a sculpture of a cat. And all around his memorial I planted a green ground cover, and Hens and Chickens. Hens and Chickens are a succulent that is a thick, green leaved succulent that has a red boarder around the edges of the leaves. Leroy liked the Hens and Chickens in other places in our garden, and often checked them out when he went outside, so I planted some where he rests.

Months after all of this happened to us, my husband and I were watching a television program one evening, and we heard one of the characters in the story say that when a dove dies on your porch it is a sign that someone in your family will die. The dove we rescued didn't die on our porch but it huddled there for safety after something mauled it, and it died later at the veterinarian's office. Then the beautiful berry bush that grew close to where we found the injured dove, died, and a couple of months late, our dear Leroy developed salivary gland cancer; dying while in the veterinarian's care at his clinic. Leroy's grave became the plot of earth where the once beautiful, berry bush used to grow. I've looked it up on the Internet, and it is an old belief that when a dove comes to you and dies on your porch that there will be a death in the family, just like the character in the movie on television stated.

We never believed in 'old wives tales' before the Easter Sunday dove came to us on that day, and we did all we could to help it.

Strange things happen here in Paradise, and this was one of the strangest, most painful things that has happened to us here.

This is a true life story of both Carol Garnier Dutra and Richard Dutra originally published on Tuesday June 1, 2010 in my MOM'S Blog by MOM in Hollister.
Copyright 2010/2011/2012
.


Leroy's memorial before we planted the ground cover and his Hens and Chickens.
.

My Mother's Love Sustained Me Throughout The Years...

A doctor told my mother that I would be ‘stillborn’. This was back in January 1944.

The photo to the right of this post is my mother, Christine Garnier, and the young child with her is...me!

My name is Carol Garnier Dutra a.k.a. MOM in Hollister.
During the summer of 1995 when I was 51 years old I went to a professional hypnotherapist, licensed by the State of California, and paid what was to me at that time a whopping fee of $200 to have my memory regressed in time in order to resolve an issue I was dealing with in my life. I did this action because I knew that there had to be something in my past life that triggered a fear I felt whenever I consulted with a medical doctor.

At the time I sought out the help of a professional hypnotherapist I had no idea of what I would learn about myself that was at the bottom of my fear. What I came away with from my hypnotherapy session was more than just an explanation of my fear of medical doctors.

I was the caregiver for my mother for the last six years of her life from September 1980 to August 1986. All of my life I felt a deep devotion to my mother so when she needed my help there was no question in my mind about helping her.

I left the therapist’s office that day in 1995, with both an explanation of my fear of medical professionals, and I also gained a deeper understanding of what was behind my unyielding devotion to my mother, and my unconditional love for her those last six years of her life.

During my hypnosis session, the therapist doing my regression didn’t find an event in my recent memory that seemed important enough to give me a panic response whenever I consulted a medical professional. The therapist made the decision to move my memory farther back in time. I know this may sound strange to some persons; in an effort to learn what was causing my fear of doctors the therapist regressed me back in time to when I was still an unborn fetus in my mother’s womb.

I remember as a child, my mother telling me, that when she was five months pregnant with me, she fell off the back porch of the rental that she, my father and my two brothers lived in. The railing gave away when my mother leaned on it as she was sweeping the porch landing. My mother fell forward, off the porch, which was 5 feet above the ground below. Her left foot was caught between two of the up and down rails that constituted part of the porch railing.

As she fell, her caught foot stopped her fall, and this action resulted in her leg being broken. When the top portion of my mother’s body hit the blacktop her right arm was broken when she put her arm in front of her face to protect her face.
I remember my mother had a tiny dark spot on her right cheek where she told me there was a small rock embedded into her cheek that was a result of her falling off the porch that day.

A passing neighbor saw my mother hanging from the porch, and called an ambulance. My mother, Christine Garnier, was taken to Lynn Hospital where she spent several weeks in the hospital, and later at home she was bedridden the remainder of her pregnancy.
My mother told me that everyone at the hospital thought that the 5-month fetus she was carrying was dead because it stopped moving after she had her accident.
That fetus was I.

Back in 1944 we didn’t have fetal monitors, which we have today where you can actually see a fetus inside of the mother’s womb. So no one had a way to see inside my mother to verify if the fetus was dead or alive. I am surprised that the doctor who attended my mother in Lynn Hospital couldn’t tell that I was still alive by listening to my heartbeat? What I am saying here is that I do believe that the doctor attending my mother lied to her, and my mother didn't believe him. I was alive; I was very alive! I must have been stunned when my mother fell that day, and I must have not moved much after her accident mainly out of a primal instinct that could be called, 'fear'. My mother told me that it was a surprise to everyone, except her, when I was born in the middle of May, alive, healthy and quite vocal!

The local newspaper, The Lynn Telegram News, published a story about my birth calling me the ‘miracle baby’ because of my mother’s terrible accident, and because I was born alive and healthy. That was the entire story my mother told me about her accident that happened to her on that gray, cold day in January 1944. All these events happened to my mother when she was only thirty eight (38) years old!

During my hypnosis session in 1995 I told the therapist, who was regressing me, that some time after my mother had her accident I could hear a male voice telling her she had both a broken leg and a broken arm, she was facing a long recovery, and it would be better for her if she terminated her pregnancy. This same person stated that I must be dead since I was not moving.

Today I realize that because my mother was 5 months pregnant, termination of her pregnancy meant that if she agreed to the termination she would have a ‘late term abortion’ where a fully formed baby is broken up into pieces inside of the mother, and all of the pieces are then sucked out of the mother.

As an adult undergoing hypnotic regression, I realized that the person who was urging my mother to terminate her pregnancy was the doctor who was assigned to her case when she was admitted to Lynn Hospital. So it follows that at some time in my adult life my subconscious mind had already made the connection between the person who tried to convince my mother to have an abortion, and medical doctors.

Since undergoing hypnotic regression, I have learned that clinical studies have been done where music has been played for unborn fetuses, resulting with the children, once they are born, showing a preference for the same type of music as was played near their mothers while the fetuses were still in their mothers’ wombs.
From these studies the conclusion has been made that an unborn fetus of at least 20 weeks term, can hear and remember the sounds of the world outside of it’s mother’s womb. A fetus of 20 weeks is a fetus of 5 months. I was a fetus of 5 months when my mother had her accident.

I was with my mother as she passed away peacefully in the summer of 1986. I was never able to ask her about what happened in Lynn Hospital after her accident back in 1944, in order to confirm from her that she was encouraged by her doctor to have a late term abortion.

Learning from my hypnotic regression in 1995 that my mother made the decision to not abort me back in January 1944 explained to me my undying love for her, and my determination to keep going physically and mentally when the whole world seemed to be crashing in on me during the six years I cared for her. During those six years I was faced with watching her health slowly deteriorate up to that day she passed away from pneumonia in August 1986 at the age of 79.

My mother’s love sustained me through out those worst years of both her life and my life, and in some ways those years when I cared for her, were the most learning years of my adult life.

Since my hypnotic regression in 1995 I became gradually less afraid of doctors, and today I no longer have a fear of medical doctors thanks to learning the truth of what caused my former fear.

It is always better to know the truth than to fear the truth!

This story is a true-life story of Carol Garnier Dutra written and published on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 in an independent blog of my creation. This true life story has also been published in my Carol Garnier Dutra's Blog.

Copyright © 2010/2011/2012 by Carol Garnier Dutra
.
Posted by MOM in Hollister, CA at 12:40 PM
.

Responsibility Is A Concept That Is Learned...

Responsibility is a concept that is learned at some point in life by most people.

I vividly remember the day, back in 1953 when I was nine years old, and in the fourth grade at Burrill Elementary School when I realized what the word responsibility meant.

After the end of the previous school year, when I finished the third grade at St. Patrick’s Elementary School, my father moved our family into our newly purchased family home located on a street composed of hills that would level out and then climb again, which was called Oakland Avenue. Oakland Avenue was situated in the City of Lynn yet was on the boarder with the Town of Saugus, Massachusetts. This was the year I would be in forth grade, and it was my first year in a ‘public’ school where my instructors were not Catholic Nuns.

I still remember that morning in early spring when I had almost completed my first year in the public school, as I rushed down the sidewalk, that bordered Boston Street on my way to school. Back when I was a child living in Lynn, I never saw a ‘school’ bus. You walked to school or you took public transportation if a bus route was between your home and your school. There was no public bus route between my elementary school and my home, so I walked.

As I rushed down the sidewalk I noticed something moving inside a hedge a few feet away from me. As I neared the activity in the hedge I realized that the movement in the hedge was coming from a small, brown bird, fighting for it’s life, trying to free itself from being entangled in the hedge by a long string that was wrapped around the birds legs, and caught in the twigs within the hedge. It was spring, and in spring I was used to witnessing wild birds fly by me, carrying small twigs and pieces of string to build their nests.

I stopped and looked at the little bird, I heard its 'tweets' asking me for help. I knew that I didn’t have any time to spare; if I stopped to help the bird then I would be late for school, and I didn’t like to call attention to myself by being late for school. I had to make a choice and the choice I made was to stay, help the bird, and be late for school.

It took me several minutes to do, yet I was able to untangle the bird’s legs from both the string and the hedge. I watched it fly away. I remember thinking to myself that I hoped it had learned a lesson to be more careful with string while flying so close to a hedge.
What I didn’t realize was that I was the ‘one’, who had learned a lesson that morning, a valuable life lesson. I resumed my half running, half walking trek on to school, knowing fully that I was going to be late.

When I reached my school no one was in the schoolyard. I was late!
Again, I had to make a choice.
Do I tell my teacher what I did, which was a ‘good deed’ or should I be silent because telling the truth would seem to be a plea for ‘mercy’, it would be making an ‘excuse’ instead of just saying I was sorry that I was late.

My teacher was angry with me. I was only nine years old, and I took responsibility for my actions; I didn’t make any excuses for being late. I just told my teacher that I was sorry that I was late for school. I grew up a lot that day!

I can’t say for absolute sure what made me do what I did that day, choosing to help the wild bird, knowing that it would make me late for school. I can't say for absolute sure what made me just say that I was sorry for being late, and not making an excuse for being late by telling the story about what I did to rescue the bird in the hedge caught up in the string it was taking to a nest it was building.

Maybe what I did and said that morning, had something to do with the three years I spent being educated at St. Patrick’s Elementary, being taught by the nuns at that school. I know that attending St. Patrick's Elementary had a profound affect that had something to do with my attitude toward what I did then, and what I do in my life today. Whatever it was that shaped my personal ‘self’, whatever it was that made me do the right thing that day, and take responsibility for my actions, I am thankful that I turned out as I did.

Carol Garnier Dutra
This short story is a true story that happened to me.

Copyright © 2010/2011 by Carol Garnier Dutra
.

Safe Online Shopping Thanks To ShopSafe From Bank Of America Visa...

If you have a Bank ofAmerica Visa credit card I hope you give ShopSafe a try. I have been using the ShopSafe system for online and phone purchases for some time now and I love how simple and worry-free it is to use.

This is how I found ShopSafe:
One day, while checking on our Bank of America online Visa charges I noticed on the page I was looking at that BofA was offering something new that they were calling ShopSafe. I clicked the ShopSafe online address that I saw on my online Visa charge page, and I was directed to the ShopSafe page.

Here's how easy ShopSafe is to use:
I quickly learned that I could assign an amount of money to a 'surrogate' credit card number and use the 'new' number to make a purchase either online or over the phone. If something were to happen to the database at the merchant's online store, where my 'surrogate' credit card number was stored, no one could use my credit card number because it had already been used by the merchant where I made my purchase. Each ShopSafe number becomes a 'dedicated' Visa credit card number that can be used by only the first merchant that enters it into the Visa database.

In addition to this safeguard, the amount of money that I assigned to the credit card number can not be changed by anyone, not even the merchant. The only person who has control over the ShopSafe number, and the amount of money that is assigned to the ShopSafe Visa number is the owner of the original Visa credit card number.

Example: Say I assign three hundred dollars ($300.00) to a ShopSafe number, and I spend two hundred and twenty of those dollars ($220.00) on a purchase that leaves eighty dollars ($80.00) in the number that has not been used. I can go back to the same merchant and charge the remaining money on another purchase but I cannot use the remaining money to make another purchase with a different merchant. To make a charge with a different merchant I have to get another surrogate Visa number for the new merchant, and assign whatever amount of money that I need to the new number. Numbers have a 'shelf life' that the owner of the Visa assigns to them. I usually get six (6) months assigned to each number that I take out at the ShopSafe online page.

How it works for the merchant:
When the merchant calls in to Visa with the number you give him or her for your purchase it goes into a database, and the charge is re-routed by the bank to your 'real' Visa credit card number. The next day you should be able to go online to look at your Visa credit card charges, and see the charge from the merchant who used your 'surrogate' ShopSafe Visa credit card number to make the purchase at his or her online store. It's as simple as that! You never have to tell the merchant that you are using ShopSafe.

I don't know why Bank of America is not advertising ShopSafe. I know others that use the ShopSafe system for online and phone purchases, and they love it as much as I do.

Of course when I purchase goods in person at a store I use my regular Visa credit card instead of ShopSafe.

Carol Garnier Dutra

Copyright © 2010 by Carol Garnier Dutra
.

Carmine Food Coloring Is From Bugs ... Do You Want To Eat Bugs?...

I originally published my 'rant' on Carmine food coloring made from bug bits back in 2010 in my consumer blog. I think this information is important, especially for parents of children, that it deserves to be published again, here in my main blog.
Thanks,
Carol

This is my ‘Rant’ on bug bits and bug parts used as food coloring in our food chain, and the same bug parts used for coloring cosmetics. Often this food/cosmetic coloring made from bugs is to blame for 'hidden' allergies that affect both adults and children. It is often difficult to diagnose this allergy because most people are not aware that Carmine coloring comes from crushed beetles.

Sometimes these allergies manifest in adults that have become sensitized as they age. But children are more often the ‘victims’ of this insidious red/pink/purple food color when it is in foods such as Minute Maid Fruit Punch and brightly colored yogurts and candies.

This insidious food color is often called 'NATURAL' because it comes from bugs; bugs are 'NATURAL' but why would anyone in the civilized world want to consume BUGS?

Carmine, not my uncle Carmine but instead the red/pink or purple coloring that is used to color some foods and commercially available, drugstore variety cosmetics, especially lipstick and blush, is obtained from the Cochineal or the Polish Cochineal Beetle, which is a scaled insect that is raised on beetle farms specifically for the purpose of harvesting the red/pink or purple color from the beetles hard shell, body casing. I guess you know by this second paragraph that this post is about both the BAD and the UGLY in our consumer world!

Some cosmetic brands that use Carmine coloring in their products are Revlon Cosmetics, Maybelline Cosmetics, L’Oreal Cosmetics and many other cosmetics that are commonly found in drug stores or regular grocery stores.

There are cosmetics available that do NOT use Carmine as a red/pink/purple coloring agent. Stores like Whole Foods and some shops that sell vitamin preparations often carry such cosmetics that don’t contain Carmine. And the prices of the cosmetics without Carmine are about the same as the price of the cosmetics that do contain Carmine.

There are also many shops on the Internet that sell Carmine FREE lipstick and blush colored with either mineral or vegetable coloring.
Check labels on all cosmetics for the coloring agent used.

Because I don’t like the idea of beetle body parts providing the red/pink/purple coloring in my lipstick, I buy and use a lipstick made by a manufacturer called Gabriel that makes some red and pink colors that I use that are NOT colored with Carmine. Here again you have to read the ingredients to make sure that the lipstick you choose does not contain Carmine.

I obtain my Gabriel brand lipstick through the Internet at a shop called White Rabbit that is located in Half Moon Bay, California. Most Gabriel colors do not contain Carmine and they do NOT contain petroleum either. Petroleum dries out the skin and lips so it is best to NOT have petroleum in any cosmetics.

Petroleum products at first seem to moisturize the skin and lips but as time goes on the constant use of petroleum products produces a drying effect. Chapstick brand lip balm in the tube is a good example of a petroleum based lip balm that has a drying effect on the lips. The reason petroleum is used so often in lip balms sold in regular drug and grocery stores is because the profit margin to the manufacturer, and the resale profit margin to the store, is greater cheaper ingredients are used to make products, and using petroleum in cosmetics is much cheaper that using oils like jojoba or safflower in a lipstick.

Another place where Carmine is used is in the food industry, especially in yogurts and fruit juices, and it can be found in some ice cream.

I love Activia Yogurt but I will buy only the vanilla or the peach flavor because these are the two flavors where they do NOT use Carmine to color the yogurt.

Minute Maid brand fruit juice uses Carmine to color their fruit punch flavor, fruit drink a bright red color. Many mothers serve this brand of fruit punch to their children because they trust the Minute Maid brand name, and they may NOT be aware that it is Carmine that is used to make this juice a bright red color.

I have read that Carmine food coloring can cause some people to go into anaphylactic shock. Anaphylactic shock can kill a person.

If a woman is wearing a lipstick colored with Carmine, and she kisses a child on the face that is allergic to Carmine it can cause a reaction on the child’s skin. If the same woman kisses a man on the lips, who is allergic to Carmine, the allergic reaction can be much worse that an allergic reaction on the surface of the skin.

Most allergic reactions have been reported to Carmine when it is used as a coloring in food products.

The beetle that is crushed to obtain the red/pink or purple color from its outer shell is a living creature, and because these bugs are living creatures they are composed of their own form of protein in the form of amino acids that are particular to their species of beetle.

All living creatures are composed of amino acids arranged into whole proteins. We know that allergic reactions are to proteins. Some of the beetles protein must remain in the Carmine food color in order to produce the allergic reactions that have been reported.
Such allergic reactions can be especially tragic in children because often parents are not aware that it is the natural food coloring called Carmine that is causing their child’s asthma or other allergies.

Fruit drinks colored with vegetable food colors like the red color that comes from red beets are a better deal for young children to drink.

Please, don't confuse beets with beetles; beets are a vegetable, while beetles are bugs.

Check labels on both yogurt and fruit juices for the word ‘Carmine’ and if you see this word, you will know that ground, dried, beetle bits were boiled to extract the carminic acid from the bug bits, and then a product like alum or cream of tartar, stannous chloride or potassium hydrogen oxalate was used to precipitate the settling of the bug bits to the bottom of the container that is being used for this process. The settled red bug bits are dried, and in this form they are added to products to obtain red, pink or purple beetle juice color.

Say, wasn’t that the title of a movie about dead people about twenty years ago, Beetle Juice, Beetle Juice…I don’t dare say it three times…

Copyright © 2010/2011 by Carol Garnier Dutra

The following is an abstract taken from a larger article written for PubMed, which is a U.S. government publication.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/13679965

[Asthma and allergy due to carmine dye].[Article in Spanish]
Tabar AI, Acero S, Arregui C, Urdánoz M, Quirce S.
Source
Servicio de Alergología, Hospital Virgen del Camino, Pamplona.

Abstract
Cochineal carmine, or simply carmine (E120), is a red colouring that is obtained from the dried bodies of the female insect Dactylopius coccus Costa (the cochineal insect). We have evaluated the prevalence of sensitization and asthma caused by carmine in a factory using natural colouring, following the diagnosis of two workers with occupational asthma. The accumulated incidence of sensitization and occupational asthma due to carmine in this factory are 48.1% and 18.5% respectively, figures that make the introduction of preventive measures obligatory. Occupational asthma caused by inhaling carmine should be considered as a further example of the capacity of certain protein particles of arthropods (in this case cochineal insects) to act as aeroallergens. Carmine should be added to the list of agents capable of producing occupational asthma, whose mechanism, according to our studies, would be immunological mediated by IgE antibodies in the face of diverse allergens of high molecular weight, which can vary from patient to patient. Nonetheless, given the existence of different components in carmine, it cannot be ruled out that substances of low molecular weight, such as carminic acid, might act as haptenes. Besides, since we are dealing with a colouring that is widely used as a food additive, as a pharmaceutical excipient and in the composition of numerous cosmetics, it is not surprising that allergic reactions can appear both through ingestion and through direct cutaneous contact. We find ourselves facing a new example of an allergen that can act through both inhalation and digestion, giving rise to an allergolical syndrome that can show itself clinically with expressions of both respiratory allergy and alimentary allergy.
PMID:
13679965
[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Free full text

An alimentary allergy refers to a disease of the digestive tract.


On April 20, 2012 in the San Jose Mercury News it was reported that Starbucks will stop using red food dye made from crushed bugs (Carmine-cochineal beetle extract) in their strawberry flavored mixed drinks, and foods like the raspberry swirl cake, and their red velvet whoopie pie. Isn't it nice that you will no longer be consuming beetle juice in your Starbucks drinks and cakes! In place of the bug juice Starbucks will use red coloring made from lycopene, which is a red food color made from tomatoes. Hoo-rayyyyy for Starbucks!

Cottonseed Oil Is Toxic and Natural; Rattlesnake Venom Is Toxic and Natural, Too...

I originally published my blog entry on cottonseed and cottonseed oil in a dedicated blog in 2010, and I feel it's worth publishing it again, in this blog.

Cottonseed oil is squeezed from cottonseeds.

Cottonseeds come from cotton balls.

You know, cotton balls that grow in those cotton fields, way down south…,"when them cotton balls gets rotten… there’s no picking that cotton…".

That line comes from an old song that refers to the growing of cotton in the southern part of the United States. Today, cotton is grown in 'warm' climate countries around the globe, including India and Egypt.

Do you know anyone who eats cotton balls?

I don’t!

Then WHY do some people call cotton balls, and the seed of the cottonballs a vegetable?

Cottonseed oil was ‘grand fathered’ in as a food product in the United States, by our government, because it was already being used as a ‘fry’ oil in parts of our country by poor folk, back in the mid twentieth century. It was sometime in the nineteen seventies when our food and drug agency (FDA) set up a list of what was considered a food, and what was not considered a food. So since cottonseed oil was already in many foods, mainly bakery products and Crisco, it was 'grand fathered' in as a food product!

Before anyone thought of using unrefined, dark, thick cottonseed oil as cooking oil, its original use was as a lubricant for machinery. Crisco baking and frying oil, which is hydrogenated cottonseed oil, was originally developed as a substitute for tallow that was used for making candles. The developers of Crisco learned to hydrogenated the oil so it would become firm enough to hold candle wicks.

When electric lights became popular, people stopped buying candles, and the original developers of hydrogenated Crisco were left with a lot of Crisco; so they invented a use for it. That use was as a baking and frying substitute to take the place of pork lard and beef tallow. Lard and tallow were what most people used for baking and frying before hydrogenated, cottonseed oil Crisco came on the market as baking and frying oil.
As we all know today, hydrogenated fats are artery cloggiers. Lard and beef tallow aren’t much better. Way back when Crisco was marketed to the public we didn't know that hydrogenation clogged arteries and caused heart attacks.

I’ll say it again…I don’t know anyone who EATS cotton balls! So how can anyone in his or her right mind call cottonseed oil, editable oil?

COTTONSEED OIL IS NATURAL; SO IS RATTLESNAKE POISON

Yes, cottonseed oil is ‘natural’ because it comes from cotton balls and cotton balls are 'natural' but then, rattlesnake poison is ‘natural’ because it comes from ‘natural’ rattlesnakes. In my mind, because of what I know about cottonseed oil, this oil is about as ‘natural’ as rattlesnake poison is ‘natural’, and like rattlesnake poison, cottonseed oil should NOT be in our food supply! .

I LIKE MANY OTHERS, DEVELOPED AN ALLERGY TO COTTONSEED OIL

Way back when I was a youngster, I was allergy tested by a professional allergist, and learned that some of my allergies were due to my consumption of cottonseed oil, mainly in fast food, and store bought bakery items.
Learning this was a part of why I learned to cook and bake so at least something good came out of something bad, the bad being my allergy to cottonseed oil, which was in just about everything that was pre-made and sold in a grocery store or a fast food restaurant back when I was growing up..

Years went by and I returned to college as an older adult, then one day…

CAMPBELL'S VEGETABLE SOUP; RUINED!

I remember back to when I was in college when I had the most surprising reaction to a bowl of Campbell’s Vegetable Soup. I always liked this particular soup as a quick, hot meal when I didn’t have time to prepare myself a proper meal. On the day in question I was studying for a test, and I didn’t read the ingredients label on the can; after all this soup had been one that I had eaten many times in the past. It turned out that Campbell's had changed the recipe, and added cottonseed oil to the soup’s recipe.

On reflection I realize that Campbell’s Soup Company probably did this because Cottonseed Oil is the cheapest cooking oil available on the market, and using cheaper ingredients increases a companies ‘profit margin’ on a product. And Campbell’s Soup needs all the profit it can squeeze out of its consumers…

On this particular day I realized that I had ingested cottonseed oil when the skin over my eyeballs swelled up to the point where my eyes were closed by the swelling. I couldn’t study with my eyes closed! It took some time for the swelling to subside, and when it did go down, I peeped out from under my golf ball sized eyes…the lids were swollen, not my eyes… I read the soup can label, and realized that the nice people at Campbell’s Soup had added cottonseed oil to their product…and they ruined it!

ALLERGY TESTS BY PROFESSIONAL ALLERGIST

In years past, I have gone through extensive allergy testing, the kind of tests where they make a checkerboard on the patient’s back and backs of the arms. This form of testing involves sterile needles for scratching the skin, one fresh, uncontaminated needle for each allergen being tested. There are over two hundred known allergens tested in this allergy test.

I have gone through this test two times in my life separated by ten years between the tests, and done by two different allergy doctors. Cottonseed oil is one of the allergens that is tested on patients taking this test. Each time I went through this allergen test I tested positive for cottonseed, and the reaction each time was a violent reaction with a very large, red wheal on my skin where the skin had been scratched with the sterile needle, and the cottonseed product was scratched into the top layer of my skin.

EVEN TODAY COTTONSEED OIL CAN BE IN BREAD PRODUCTS

I know that I developed my allergy to cottonseed oil when I was a youngster, when this oil was a common ingredient in sliced bread, store bought cookies and snack crackers. My mother used Crisco (hydrogenated cottonseed oil) for cooking. I ate cottonseed oil in food products for years before I developed my allergy to it.

When I was a youngster I especially noticed that I had an itch on my skin every time I ate store bought bakery products. It wasn’t until I developed a more severe skin problem as a young adult, and was allergy skin tested by my first allergy doctor that I realized that what was causing my skin to itch from store bought bakery products was the cottonseed oil in the products. I also learned that eating cottonseed oil in store purchased, and fast food products caused the severe skin problem I developed as a young adult.

Even today cottonseed oil is still present in many store bought breads, cookies, crackers, chips and other snacks. This oil should be avoided by everyone because of the potential of developing an allergy to the consumption of it in food products. And to top this all off, I recently learned that cottonseed oil is rich in omega 6 fatty acids that we know destroy the good omega 3 fatty acids. Omega 3 fatty acids are essential to have good heart health, and healthy skin. Omega 6 acids in cottonseed oil are not good for us.

Because our skin is our largest organ, and we eliminate toxins through our skin within our sweat, it makes sense to realize that when we ingest cottonseed oil our bodies start eliminating the toxins in this oil immediately because our bodies recognize and want to get rid of the toxins. The toxins in cottonseed oil are what cause the itch some of us experience on the surface of the skin after eating at fast food places, and the toxins in this oil cause skin rashes, acne, and can cause anaphylactic shock for those of us who have developed a severe allergy to this oil.

COTTON IS COMBED TO REMOVE SEED BEFORE IT IS SPUN INTO THREAD; THEN SPUN INTO CLOTH

When cotton is picked the cottonseed is extracted from the cotton balls. People who are allergic to cottonseed oil are NOT allergic to cotton fabric because cotton ball fiber is ‘combed’ and washed thoroughly before it is spun into cotton fabric.

Nobody eats cotton balls because cotton balls are not a vegetable!

When cottonseeds are extracted from the cotton balls the seeds are placed into storage where they are sprayed with fungicide to prevent fungal infection of the seeds.

MERCURY BASED FUNGICIDE AND COPPER BASED FUNGICIDE

For many years the two most common sprays used to spray stored cottonseeds were Mercury based spray and or a Copper based spray. I have read that Mercury based fungicide has been banned by the F.D.A. but back when I was a youngster it was still used on the stored cottonseeds. Today, Copper based fungicides are among the toxic fungicides that are still used to spray on stored cottonseeds. When the seeds are pressed, some of the fungicide remains in the oil. It is impossible to remove all of the fungicide from oil. Many people are concerned about Mercury in childhood vaccinations; until Mercury fungicides were banned they were in cottonseed oil.

Often the fungus, which a fungicide spray is intended to kill, is already present on the stored cottonseeds or soon comes in contact with the stored cottonseeds. This fungus dies after being sprayed, or dies after coming in contact with the toxic spray that is on the cottonseeds, and the dead fungus that is left on the cottonseeds is called Aflatoxin, and Aflatoxin is one of the most toxic substances that can be present in any food product.

Aflatoxin’ is a fungal secondary metabolite.

Even though Aflatoxin is dead fungus, it is still dangerous because it is a protein contaminated with a toxic fungicide product, and allergy responses are set up by an allergic response to toxic protein, dead or alive toxic protein. What I know for sure is that today I am very allergic to cottonseed oil in any food, and I know that Aflatoxin protein present within cottonseed oil had to be responsible for my severe allergy to this oil.

It is interesting to note that peanuts are often stored after they are picked, and peanuts were also sprayed with Mercury fungicide before it was banned, to prevent fungal infections on the nuts while they are in storage. Today peanuts still in the shell are sprayed with Copper based fungicide or some other toxic fungicide.Peanuts are cooked (roasted) before being made into peanut butter unless the label on the product states differently. Roasting will kill any 'live' fungus that may remain on the shelled nuts but roasting will not remove dead fungus that is contaminated with toxic fungicide.

After peanuts are shelled, and the peanuts are roasted and pressed to make peanut butter it is known and acknowledged that some Aflatoxin does somehow get into the finished peanut butter product.

Once again because this information bears repeating; Aflatoxin is a fancy word to describe a fungus that has been killed by a toxic fungicide, and while living this fungus is a complete protein unto itself. Even in death, Aflatoxin is still a 'protein'.

Protein has to be present as the mechanism that triggers allergy in both children and adults.

As the years go by, more chemicals are introduced into our food chain, and we see more illness including Cancers, Autism in our children, and even Diabetes is on the rise in all civilized cultures in our World.

GOSSYPOL A NATURAL TOXIN

Gossypol is an interesting toxin that is ‘naturally’ present within cottonseeds.

I have to call Gossypol a ‘toxin’ because it is a ‘natural’ POISON, and all natural poisons are defined as toxins or toxic!

When cottonseeds are squeezed for their oil, Gossypol toxin is also extracted from the seeds.
Today we are being told by the cotton seed oil industry, that much of the Gossypol present in cottonseeds is removed from the final oil product by a ‘bleaching’ process, which by the way introduces still more chemicals into the final oil mix.

When I was a youngster the amount of Gossypol present in cottonseed oil was NOT regulated because back then, no one was aware of how toxic Gossypol was. If the oil was bleached then I believe it may have been bleached for aesthetic reasons. Cottonseed oil freshly extracted from cottonseeds is dark brown or dark amber in color. Any color remaining in the oil indicates Gossypol is present.

Today, one in five adults are allergic to cottonseed oil; that’s twenty percent of the adult population, and it is all adults of all colors, all races. This was the number my last allergist gave me. My doctor also told me that my allergy to cottonseed oil is so severe now, that I have to completely avoid eating anything that may contain cottonseed oil.

GOOGLE SCHOLAR SEARCH ENGINE

Google the words 'Google Scholar', and when the link for Google Scholar comes up in your 'search' results then click this link. You will find yourself in a completely different SEARCH engine, called 'Google Scholar'. While you are in 'Google Scholar' query the search engine for ‘Gossypol’. You can read for yourself information on the 'natural toxin' Gossypol that is in unrefined cottonseed oil. As I already stated, the cottonseed industry claims that Gossypol is removed by a bleaching process from the cottonseed oil that is available today. But this doesn’t stop allergies to this oil mostly because of the high toxic chemical content of the oil from repeated insecticide and fungicide use on the crop, and on the stored seeds..

I know that any amount of cottonseed oil, in any food product, causes a nasty allergic response within my body, so what the cottonseed oil industry is doing, just isn’t enough.

What should be done, what I would like to see, is cottonseed oil completely removed from our food chain because cottonseed oil is often a hidden allergen that takes extensive investigation and testing to uncover. Not that many people are aware of cottonseed oil as an allergen, and I believe that many cases of various skin rashes, acne and cystic acne are caused by ingesting cottonseed oil.

I recently read on the label that my favorite chocolate fudge sauce that I put on ice cream has recently added cottonseed oil to the recipe. Many people will use the sauce now, have a reaction afterwards, and wonder what changed the sauce or the ice cream to make their skin itch or make them breakout? This is because allergy to cottonseed oil is not that well known despite the fact that cottonseed is one of the allergens in tests that doctors use to determine what people are allergic to.

When confronted with the fact that cottonseed oil is an allergen the cottonseed oil industry will counter back with an argument that you have to have a protein present in any substance in order to cause an allergic reaction.
They will say that oil is oil, and they will believe that the average citizen will not be informed enough to know that within cottonseed oil there is protein, and that protein is called Aflatoxin.


Please remember that along with Aflatoxin in cottonseed oil you will find multiple insecticide and fungal contaminants including toxic Copper fungicide. In the past it used to be toxic Mercury fungicide before the E.P.A. outlawed all Mercury fungicides.

There is no way to remove all of the Aflatoxin or the Copper fungicide from the oil.
Just remember that Aflatoxin IS protein!

MONSANTO CHEMICAL

When I refer to the cottonseed oil industry as a whole, I am referring to
Monsanto Chemical.

Monsanto Chemical is the largest producer of both Gossypol used in medical research, and cottonseed oil that is sold for human consumption.

Monsanto Chemical is also the company that leads the world in GMO crops including genetically modified corn.

Once you read the truth, for yourself, about cottonseed oil I hope you avoid eating foods that contain this oil. I also hope that your research brings you into the subject of GMO modified crops and what Monsanto Chemical is doing to our food supply.
That is one very big subject to cover.

Please read how Monsanto Chemical is destroying the 'small farmer' in many countries around the globe. Read how Monsanto Chemical sells 'seed' that will bear crops but the seed that is produced by the crop will NOT germinate so small farmers have to re-buy seed every single year instead of 'saving seed' from their crop, and reseeding. This makes more money for Monsanto Chemical when they sell seed every single year, but is too expensive for many 'small family farmers' especially in struggling countries like India. Please read this information for yourselves, and learn what is happening to our food supply, and WHO is behind all of it!

BUSINESS ON DECLINE

The first thing I ask whenever I enter a bakery or pizza parlor is what oils do you have in your products? You can separate the 'good' from the 'bad' bakeries and pizza parlors by what oil products they put into their products. I always saw in the past that when a business was on a 'decline' they started using oils that contained 'cheap' cottonseed oil to save money and increase their 'profit' margin.

GOSSYPOL SO TOXIC IT KILLS PROSTRATE CANCER CELLS

Gossypol is so toxic that it is being tested to kill off cancer cells in Prostrate Cancers. Not all of the Gossypol in cottonseed oil is removed when the ‘bleaching’ process refines the oil. Some Gossypol remains.
Raw, unrefined cottonseed oil with all of the Gossypol intact has been used as a contraceptive in China for both males and females. Information on this use should come up when you do your ‘Google Scholar’ search.

In China, human females, who were fed unrefined Cottonseed Oil without removing the toxic Gossypol, were unable to carry a fetus to term. The end result of this experiment was that very few children were born to the adults in the village where this experiment was carried out by the Chinese government. You should be able to read about the Chinese ‘birth control’ experiment in both the Google Search Engine and in the Google Scholar Search Engine.

It’s always better to know the truth than to fear the truth.

Carol Garnier Dutra
Copyright © 2010/2011 by Carol Garnier Dutra

The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Volume 82, Issue 2, August 1988, Pages 261-264 Forty-fifth Annual Meeting reports on what cottonseed flour does to people.

This information is what the people who push cottonseed products on the American public want to suppress.

It has been my experience in life that not everyone experiences outward reactions to cottonseed flour or cottonseed oil but internal inflammation is experienced by everyone who ingests these substances. Be kind to your bodies and avoid all products containing both cottonseed flour and cottonseed oil, for this reason.

The following link will not be 'live' so copy it and plug it into your browsers search. Google Scholar is an excellent search engine to use for this purpose. You can read for yourself the negative effect cottonseed flour and cottonseed oil has on human beings.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WH4-4FY515Y-J8&_user=10&_coverDate=08%2F31%2F1988&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1562348583&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=e6c0763a0ef56df6b8bfb74b126b95e1&searchtype=a

Angioedema and urticaria caused by cottonseed protein in whole-grain bread

G. Malanin MD and K. Kalimo MD
From the Department of Dermatology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
Received 1 January 1987;
accepted 17 April 1988.
Available online 14 April 2005.

Abstract
A 29-year-old patient developed a severe allergic reaction after eating whole-grain bread. The bread appeared to contain cotton seed-protein flour. The skin prick tests with the bread and cottonseed were strongly positive. High level of circulating antibodies of IgE class against cottonseed protein could be detected in her blood samples. It is evident that cottonseed flour is used in diverse products and can cause unexpected severe hypersensitivity reactions.
Article Outline
• References
Corresponding author. Reprint requests: K Kalimo, MD, Department of Dermatology, University of Turku, SF-20520 , Turku, , Finland.

Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Volume 82, Issue 2, August 1988, Pages 261-264 Forty-fifth Annual Meeting

The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Volume 82, Issue 2, August 1988, Pages 261-264 Forty-fifth Annual Meeting reports on what cottonseed flour does to people.

Carol Garnier Dutra


Copyright © 2010/2011 by Carol Garnier Dutra

My Favorite Red Velvet Chocolate Fudge Cake...

Ingredients:

Cake

1 Cup unsifted unsweetened cocoa, dissolved in 2 cups of boiling HOT water.
2 3/4 cups sifted all purpose flour (sift flour b before measuring because sifting changes measurements)
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder

1-cup butter is best for this recipe but 1 cup of your favorite margarine can be substituted

2 ½ cups granulated sugar, bakers finer sugar can be substituted for the granulated sugar

4 large or 4 jumbo eggs

1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
The 'true' vanilla bean grows on a vanilla orchid (vanilla planifolia), and is picked when it is yellow. The long dark vanilla bean that we are used to seeing in pictures is achived by a 'curing' process.

Frosting

1 pkg semisweet chocolate pieces
½ cup light cream
1 cup pure dairy butter or 1 cup margarine
2 ½ cups unsifted confectioners sugar…this is what we used to call ‘powdered sugar’

Cream Filling

1 ½ cup pure dairy, heavy cream, chilled from the refrigerator
¼ cup unsifted confectioners (powdered) sugar
1-teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Method:

Cake

Dissolve the unsifted, unsweetened cocoa in the 2 cups of boiling water, stir the mixture until all of the cocoa is dissolved, and set the mixture aside to cool.
Sift together the flour, soda, salt, and baking powder into a large bowl.
Sifters are hard to find these days, but they are available in most specialty, cooking stores. A sifter will consist of a wire cage with small holes between the wires, and a handle that you turn to agitate the dry flour mixture inside of the sifter, causing the mixture to ‘sift’ through the holes in the wire cage in the unit.

In a large bowl, cream together the 1 cup butter with the 2 ½ cups granulated or bakers sugar.
Beat the 4 eggs together with the vanilla, and add the egg mixture the creamed butter/sugar mixture and beat this ‘wet’ mixture with an electric mixer on high until light and fluffy, which will take about 5 minutes.
Switch your mixer to low speed, and alternate adding in the flour mixture and the dissolved cocoa. The dissolved cocoa mixture should be on the cool side so it will not cook the egg mixture when they are combined together.

Divide the thick, creamy cake mixture into 2 or three 9” cake pans that you have greased and lightly floured. Grease and flour pans even if your cake pans are non-stick.
At 350 degrees, 2 cake pans should take approximately 40 minutes to bake. At 350 degrees, 3 cake pans should take approximately 30 minutes to bake.
Test cake layers with a dry toothpick inserted in center of cake.
When the cake layers are done, the tester toothpick will come out of the layers, clean.

Frosting method:

In a saucepan combine the semisweet chocolate pieces with the ½ cup light cream, 1-cup butter and stir this mixture over a medium heat until the chocolate pieces are melted and the mixture appears smooth. Remove from the heat and with a whisk blend in the 2 ½ cups confectioners (powdered) sugar.
Place this bowl inside of another bowl filled with ice to chill the mixture, and beat the frosting until it holds its shape. Beating in this method insures a melt in your mouth-finished product!

If you are making the two cake layers, you will use a large serrated bread knife to slice through the center of each cake so that you will end up with 4 cake rounds. You will assemble these rounds with the cream filling inside.
If you do the 3 cake layers with 3 cake pans then you will not slice them in the middle because they will be thinner cake layers, and you will end up with 3 layers with cream filling between layers.

Cream Filling Method

Combine the 1 1/2 cup chilled, heavy dairy cream with the ¼ cup unsifted confectioners (powdered) sugar and the 1-teaspoon vanilla extract.
Whip this mixture until it is of the consistency of heavy, whipped cream.

Assembly:

Assemble the COOLED cake layers with the cream filling in between.
I made the cake layers the night before, and refrigerated them. In the morning I sliced the layers into 4 equal layers, and assembled with the chilled cream filling and finished the cake by frosting it with the 'melt in your mouth' fudge frosting.

I made this cake for a family member’s birthday this year. It had been many years since I made a ‘scratch’ cake, and after tasting this cake again, I can tell you that I will be making more ‘homemade’ cakes from now on.

This 'Red Velvet Cake' recipe is older than I am.

Carol Garnier Dutra

.