Very foggy morning. I don't know when it will burn off so I don't know how much gardening I will do. What ever I do will be after I bake some oatmeal-raisin cookies. I feel the need of some comfort treats. We stopped eating cookies several years ago because we were consistently disappointed by the store bought versions--even those supposedly made by the in-store bakeries. As the packages got smaller and smaller the taste became less and less satisfying and, more often than not, they resembled highly sugared rocks. They didn't even soften up dunked in milk.

John Feffer posted this on Foreign Policy In Focus. Pretty much a spot-on analysis.

I read some time ago and followed the link in one of the original to a government website which contained the original info concerning the declining nutrient values of our food crops for the last 70+ years. That article attributed the decline to selective breeding of crops for simultaneous ripening, durability for long distance shipping, and high yield while neglecting nutrient values and taste. Scientific American notes that decline in nutritive value (and links the problem to poor soil quality) in addition to selective breeding here.  This article another possible culprit: increased CO2 in the atmosphere. Though the results of several experiments are suggestive the author and the researchers interviewed stress the need for more study. Unfortunately, in our increasingly specialized world getting grants for studies which involve multiple disciplines--chemistry, nutrition, agriculture/crop science, and math in the current case--is difficult.

The cookies are done after a couple of delays. I looked for raisins and found none--so, quick trip to the store. Normally I have a couple of packs on the shelf. The recipe made 30 cookies so I froze 20 and kept 10 out for immediate (over the next three or four days) consumption. Of course, we already sampled a couple and they are nice, chewy and flavorful.

This sounds like a good idea but how it will be implemented (if it ever gets passed) may make it a not so good idea.