Saturday--

Cleaned out one of the large pots and found I actually had two pots stuck together.  These pots nest so closely that I thought they were one.  But now they are separated and I have the stacked with a spacer to keep them that way.  I also brought in the lime basil inside for the winter and should trim it back a bit.  Also transplanted the chocolate mint and brought it inside.  More cleaning up today.

We have thought a lot about food safety here.  Here is a good article on the issue.  All of the points are quite good but I do have a few quibbles.  On the issue of preservatives, we try to find foods with the fewest and/or the most natural preservatives.  The author makes it sound like our preference for preservative free foods is opening us up to food poisoning but this a damned if you do/damned if you don't argument.  Often the more complicated preservatives have been linked to health problems that it is better to avoid.  The food scientist had blinders on when they tested the preservatives.  The only concern was how effective a preservative it was not how the chemical and its metabolites reacted in the human body.  And preservatives aren't the only things we are careful to avoid.  We don't like artificial sweeteners, large amounts of natural sugars or salt either. On the issue of imported foods, we look at where our foods come from and try to find products from as close to home as possible.  The key phrase is "as possible."  Also our foods are as simple as possible.  We choose the products with the fewest components and the final meals are usually homemade.  We really use our freezer because we prefer frozen veggies to canned (less salt and no BPA) and we freeze left overs for inclusion in future meals.