Started playing around with some badges and found this collection of 8 Retro Vintage badges. For just $6 you can have all 8 which come in editable psd files. I played around with several of them, this one is the Army Jeep badge, I’ve gone ahead and modified the text and background a bit.

Fun!

Thinking of a site redesign and this might be the start for inspiration going with a vintage retro look and feel!

Just say No to GMO’s in your shopping cart

GMO labeling is a hot issue these days, especially in California, and did you know that the food industry giants like Monsanto, DuPont, Bayer Crop Science, Dow Agrosciences, BASF, Pepsico, Coca Cola, Kellogg’s, and General Mills are just a few of the corporations that contributed over $25 million dollars to fund ads against the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act (also known as Prop 37) on the November ballot in California.

This data is taken from an article Why the Food Industry Is Spending $25 Million To Keep You in the Dark

Not surprisingly, the biggest donors represent packaged-food manufacturers and the companies that manufacture GM seeds:

• Monsanto: $4,208,000 
Monsanto is the world’s largest seed company, responsible for hazardous pesticides such as DDT and Agent Orange. The company is now lobbying for approval for a new variety of corn that resists 2,4-D, one of two defoliants that comprised Agent Orange.

• DuPont: $4,025,200 
DuPont rakes in about $19 million every year from sales related to its genetically modified seeds, pesticides, and food-processing chemicals.

• Bayer CropScience: $1,618,400

• Dow Agrosciences: $1,184,800

• BASF: $1,642,300
The world’s largest chemical company, BASF recently abandoned its attempts at marketing GMO crops in Europe, where consumer rejection of GMOs has kept them largely out of the food system, and relocated its plant-science division from Germany to Raleigh, North Carolina. There, the company is working with Monsanto to develop a drought-resistant corn and a strain of genetically modified wheat.

• Syngenta: $821,300

• Council for Biotechnology Information: $375,000; Biotechnology Industry Organization: $250,000
Both of these are trade groups that represent DuPont, Monsanto, Dow, and other companies that manufacture pesticides and the genetically modified seeds designed to withstand them.

• Grocery Manufacturers Association: $375,000
This is a trade group representing packaged-food manufacturers. In a recent speech to the American Soybean Association, the group’s president stated that defeating this ballot initiative was “the single highest priority for GMA this year.” This same group actively lobbied to defeat an amendment in the Food Safety and Modernization Act of 2011 that would have banned the hormone-disrupting chemical bisphenol A from canned foods.

Now for the food companies (ironically, many of these same companies have purchased organic brands in the past few decades, so in essence they’re supporting organic food and keeping customers in the dark about their conventional products):

• Pepsico: $1,716,300

• Nestlé: $1,169,400
Owns Tribe Mediterranean Foods, which has a line of certified-organic hummus

• Coca Cola: $1,164,400
Owns Odwalla, which manufacturers a line of certified-organic smoothies and juices

• ConAgra Foods: $1,076,700

• Kellogg’s: $632,500
Owns Morningstar Farms veggie burgers and Kashi, its cereal and granola brand that recently caught flack from customers for using GMO ingredients in products advertised as “natural”; Kashi does make some certified-organic cereals and Kellogg’s is even working to certify all Kashi products under the Non-GMO Project Verified label—even as it tries to defeat GM labeling.

• General Mills: $519,401.17
Owns the Cascadian Farms and Muir Glen organic brands

• Hershey: $395,100

• J.M. Smucker: $388,000
Sells two types of certified-organic peanut butter

• Hormel Foods: $374,300

• Ocean Spray: $301,553.21

• Dean Foods: $253,950
Even though it didn’t spend as much as other companies to defeat the bill, Dean Foods owns the nation’s two largest certified-organic dairy operations, Horizon Organic and Alta Dena.

• Cargill: $202,229.36
A number of other big food companies have made smaller donations, including Del Monte, Sara Lee, Sunny Delight, Land O’ Lakes, and McCormick spices.

The GROW campaign for Oxfam America wants you to take action and tell the Obama Administration to waive the mandate for corn ethanol NOW. This is from their latest alert and Act Now campaign!

We’re in the middle of the worst drought in more than 50 years. American farmers are ringing warning bells: their crops are dying by the acre.

US Drought Monitor as of August 21, 2012.

The US is the world’s largest exporter of corn, wheat and soybeans – so when our crops suffer, the world pays higher food prices and families go hungry.

What’s making matters even worse? The EPA’s mandate for corn ethanol – a rule that requires a large portion of US corn crops to be used to make ethanol. Instead of being eaten by hungry families, those crops are burning up in our gas tanks.

Higher food prices could cause severe food crises, like the current one in the Sahel, to spread to other regions of the world. We can’t wait any longer to take action! Join us in calling on the Obama Administration to waive this mandate.

Act now: Tell the Obama Administration to waive the mandate for corn ethanol so the world can afford to eat.

Act NOW: Food isn’t fuel.

In 2011, 40 percent of the corn produced in the US was made into ethanol because of the EPA’s mandate for corn ethanol. We’re burning up millions of bushels of corn for fuel – corn that could be used as food.

As food prices skyrocket and poor families go hungry, we can’t stand idly by. By waiving the EPA’s mandate for corn ethanol, more fields can be used to grow crops as food – not fuel – and we can alleviate some of the pressure on the global food market, helping stop food prices from rising out of control.

This day 100 years ago on August 15, 1912 the world was graced with the birth of Julia Child! One of America’s culinary geniuses.

Julia was an early influence on my culinary endeavors, she inspired me with her “French Chef” cooking show on PBS, in fact, she is who inspired me to explore cooking at home at an early age, and I eventually became famous for my French Omelets. You can read more on “How an omelet changed my life”.

I had the pleasure of meeting Julia and working with her during a Macy’s cooking demonstration event at the New Orleans Centre shopping mall in 1991. At the time I was the Food and Nutrition Director at the Rehabilitation Institute of New Orleans (RINO) at F. Edward Hebert Hospital in Algiers (New Orleans), Louisiana. Other chefs at this event included the late Jamie Shannon then chef at Commander’s Palace, Frank Brigtsen chef and owner of Brigtsen’s Restaurant, Chef T. Walden, and several apprentice chefs who assisted us in preparation for the demonstrations. The photo below was taken in one of the meeting rooms before the event, I am standing second from the left and just behind Jamie Shannon.

Julia Child Macy’s Cooking Demonstration with local New Orleans chefs.

Happy Birthday Julia!
All our love!