Fed Raids Food Club in California

Twitter and Facebook pages run by real food advocates are lighting up this afternoon with the breaking news that private food club Rawesome has been raided by the Federal government this morning. Rawesome is a private food buying club that gives its members access to, among other things, raw dairy products.

Blogger Cheeseslave is on the scene and reports: "Rawesome was raided again by SWAT teams. James the owner has been arrested. They just poured at least $10k worth of milk down the drain. Bail is set at $123,000. Warrant: selling unpasteurized milk. If you're in LA please come right now to Rawesome at 655 Rose at Lincoln in Venice. We are standing out front protesting."

Rawesome was also raided last year. Selling raw milk is not illegal in California. There is no evidence that Rawesome's milk has made anybody sick. Why is the federal government arresting law-abiding citizens for selling food?

DIY Chandelier Project

Do you love that mid-century look for home decorating? Or maybe you prefer something a little more homespun than that? Now you can highlight either look with a fun, cheap DIY chandelier project, courtesy of Young House Love.

I am in love with this project! For the price of some inexpensive wire mesh and a couple packages of clothespins, you can install a cool, unique chandelier in your home. The example above went into a laundry room (very appropriate) but I can think of several places in my home where I'd like to put something like this.

Head on over to Young House Love and check it out!

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Keep Your Arsenic Off My Dinner

It's time for yet another food segment here on Scrimpalicious. Today, we're going to talk about chicken.

Specifically, we're going to talk about how the FDA recently admitted that grocery store chicken contains small amounts of arsenic.

I have a few questions after reading the above-linked article on ABC.

I'm happy to hear that Pfizer agreed to pull the offending product. I'm glad to know that it's "only" a little carcinogenic poison in the meat that I buy to feed my family.

What I am not happy with is finding yet another piece of evidence that food in America is no safer now than it was a hundred years ago when Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle. I'm not happy knowing that people are adding dangerous things to our food supply without being sure, and I mean really sure, that it's safe.

Food Renegade also makes the excellent point that the arsenic being fed to these chickens is, according to ABC news, safe because the chickens are mostly excreting it. What does that mean? It means that the arsenic that those chickens are eating is being leached into soil, dumped into rivers, turned into fertilizer--oh, and ground up and mixed with the feed given to cows and pigs.

People ask me sometimes why we're so picky about where we buy our groceries.

This is why.

Finding Real Food

Found this on facebook, posted by a friend. Love it. Not sure who the original attribution should go to--if you know, tell me!

Click on the image to make it bigger.

Life Unedited

I've been thinking a lot lately about housekeeping mishaps. Like fashion magazines and stick-thin models do for body image, Better Homes and Gardens and Martha Stewart Living create beautiful pictures of totally imaginary things and then make us all hate ourselves for not being having a living room as amazing as so-and-so who just finished renovating his vacation cottage in the Hamptons.

I try to celebrate my ridiculous mistakes and domestic calamities, in the same way that I try to celebrate women and men who have not been airbrushed, and food that is not full of chemicals. Mistakes are how we learn.

For instance, shortly after getting married, I learned a very important lesson about checking my laundry carefully to make sure nothing has been sorted wrong...

The following is a true story. I wrote this two years ago, but I've never posted it on Scrimpalicious until now.

Spearmint!

I spent some time with Mr. Scrimp's mom yesterday. We hung out, made ice cream, and canned blueberry jam--and she gave me a huge bag full of fresh spearmint!

This stuff grows like a weed, but it is a super useful plant, and I'm really excited to have so much of it. I will be hanging this batch in my pantry to dry for easy storage and use throughout the upcoming year. For instance, did you know that spearmint tea can treat nausea?

This fall, one of our goals is to reduce our use of over-the-counter pharmaceuticals and one of the ways we're preparing to do that is by making our own remedies at home.

Do you use any home remedies or herbs on a regular basis?