How did we end up here? We've lived in Northern Illinois for 29 years. Way too long for this vegetarian! Thankfully, we're only 90 miles from Madison,WI.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Just a little bit of anxiety.

I've been poisoning my family? This is just one of many statements I've pondered this week. Let's start with the plastic "bottle" issue first. In my quest to become less taxing on the environment I switched to using reusable plastic drinking containers this year. This week I read an article about how these reusable bottles were potentially leaching a harmful chemical,bisphenol A into the water we filled them with. That's fantastic! Here's our stack headed to the landfill today. So much for that plan.


I'm not only poisoning my kids but I unknowingly contributed to my Basset's death? Let me explain how I arrived at this conclusion.
A couple of weeks ago our pup started losing his fur and had some patches of bald spots. The vet checked for mites but found nothing so I did a bit of Google searching for pet food allergies. That's when I stumbled upon many articles of dogs poisoned by aflatoxin. "Aflatoxin is a naturally occurring toxic chemical that comes from a fungus found on corn and other grains that causes severe liver damage in animals." My poor Basset had exactly the symptoms listed for this poisoning and not once did the vet ask about his food. So our pup is now on a dog food that doesn't contain any corn. He seems to be feeling and looking better thank goodness. I didn't want to loose 2 dogs in a year due to toxic food.
For you pet owners, there is currently a recall on several brands of pet food produced by Mars. Here is the website to check if the food you're feeding your pet is included in this current recall.

Then there is the ECONOMY. I've banned myself from my favorite NPR show Marketplace for the rest of this week. We are in one of the worst financial crises since the Great Depression and Bush is just now today stating "He's concerned about the economy."

I need to unplug myself from Google news until November 5th. I fear my head will explode trying to remain calm while constantly checking the latest polls.

1 Comments:

Blogger SwissKnits! said...

I hope your research will keep you new pup healthy and happy and with you for many years.

Sometimes world issues get me down too... being a parent makes us want the best for our family and the world... it looks like you are doing so much for your little world...

Have you heard of Kleen Kanteen? Sigg and even LLBean Canteen? good substitutes for the plastic bottles. A bit spendy, but better than plastic.

12:19 PM

 

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