Swine flu: don't panic yet

Swine flu is all over the news today, so if you haven't heard of it, you probably have a life that doesn't involve informed citizenship, television, or the flu itself. (I personally found out through boredom, to be entirely honest.)

Who's being affected? According to CNN, 1 person in Spain, 2 people in Scotland, 6 Canadians, 26 Mexicans, and 40 Americans are infected. But wait, there's more! Turns out in Mexico, there have been 149 deaths -- not confirmed, but thought to be related to the flu -- and almost 2,000 people have been hospitalized. Alarmingly, it's taking the highest toll on folks in their 20's and 30's, the sort of young stock that you don't expect to be waylaid by disease. CNN's chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, says that it's the robust immune system of these youngsters that overreacts and does the damage.

Well, you think to yourself, this is a surprise. CNN, sweetheart, tell me when and where the heck this all started, and why is it happening?

CNN is eerily silent on the topic. It calls Mexico "the apparent epicenter of the swine flu outbreak" in its interview with Gupta, but that's as far as it goes. In another article, they claim that "researchers do not yet know" what's behind the virus, suffice to say that it came from pigs. But don't worry, says CNN. It's just "a new variation of an H1N1 virus," and "outbreaks [of normal H1N1] in pigs occur year-round."

CNN, why is all this flu business so troubling? The answer: "Scientists are concerned whenever a new virus is able to jump from an animal to a person -- and then spread from person to person. When the flu spreads person to person, it can continue to mutate, making it harder to treat or fight off."

Luckily, we don't really need waste time and money researching the cause; we know, we've known for years that this could happen. Genetic mutations sometimes happen naturally, sure, but think about it. Avian flu. SARS. Etcetera. All's I'm sayin' is that we brought it on ourselves in the form of a viral and bacterial breeding ground called, affectionately, a CAFO.

The acronym stands for "Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation," and if you've never heard of that, then you've lived a life absent of PETA and other knowledge about where food comes from. Don't worry, you're not in the minority. If people knew where their meat was coming from, the CAFO-mongers would feel the pinch, and I doubt they'd abide that -- not when they have the funds to keep you blissfully ignorant.

Not that I'm accusing anyone of anything. Totally hypothetical.

Anywho. So, if you've ever run into someone from PETA, they probably tried to cram a bunch of information about CAFOs into you as you politely nodded while thinking about how this was going to make you late to that 3 o'clock. And I can't really blame either of you. I have to agree that it's inhumane -- in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Steven Kingsolver says something like "imagine a thousand chickens in your bathroom." I would reply to Mr. Kingsolver, imagine the smell of a thousand chickens in your bathroom. Also, you're not doing the chickens any favors by imagining that it smells any better to them.

Life sucks for these animals, but because it sucks for them, it sucks for you, too. First of all, the meat is not as healthy for you. Animals like chickens and cows (and probably pigs, though I haven't done my research on them) are fed mostly corn, which they're not designed to eat in such huge quantities. It affects the flavor, but it also means that the meat has more fat in it. But, Mom, whines the voice of the CAFO-mongers, it makes them big and fat and it does it real fast!

So fast, in fact, that if you didn't take the cows to slaughter, they'd die of being too fat. But I digress.

Why am I alleging that the swine flu came from a CAFO? Because, my dear, don't you think that having thousands of animals crammed in together would cause some deficiencies in the animals' health? What do you think those CAFO people do about that? They just allow such-and-such percent of their investment to die off? Goodness gracious, no. Antibiotics, of course! Antibiotics in the food! It can't fail.

Only, it does. You know why they always tell you to take all your antibiotics when you're sick? If you didn't, you might allow bacteria to figure out how to get around the medicine. Now, imagine thousands of people, living in very tight quarters with very compromised immune systems, living in their own poop, giving lots and lots of bacteria lots and lots of chances to figure out ways around antibiotics. Whaddaya got? Crazy super-disease that don't take "no" for an answer.

As a point of clarification, viruses don't respond to antibiotics. So the antibiotic mutation explanation doesn't apply to them, but it's probably not good policy to create a festering cesspool for their breeding pleasure.

Okay. I'm done being scary, I promise. (At least for now.) Don't have a cow, though; turns out you can kill the swine flu at 160 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. It's really going to be okay, this time. If avian flu didn't do it, SARS didn't do it, West Nile didn't do it, I think we'll be okay as a species. But what about next time? What about the time when a mutant virus figures out a way around high temperatures? What then?

For starters, please, I am begging you, stop investing in strange meats. Even just limiting your meat consumption would help. If you want to go all the way, it doesn't mean you have to avoid eating anything that casts a shadow. Just buy from the farmer's market -- they do meat! It'll be more expensive, yeah, but that's what a good, healthy, eco-friendly side of meat is worth. It's worth knowing where your food comes from. And it's worth remembering that people are dying, right now, because of patronage to CAFOs -- even humble personal investments like yours.

Just ask yourself this: can you really live with the guilt of contributing to a global pandemic? 'Cause I can't.

For more information, please consider the following links:


Great article about CAFOs and swine flu by David Kirby at the Huffington Post.

A timeline of events from Biosurveillance:

Paula Crossfield at Civileats and KristenM at Foodrenegade talk about the link between the swine flu outbreak and Smithfield CAFO, something you won't find on CNN. At least not yet.

Mint Condition

This being my first post to the blog, I suppose I should explain, with poise and extravagance, the purpose in my blogging. But... nah. You're smart. You'll figure it out.

I seem to have a vague memory of a vegetable garden in the backyard, but I'm going to go ahead and say I've never grown anything in my life. I mean, a plant. I've got hair and all that. But no plant. I'd been thinking about trying my luck with a mint plant, for a number of reasons:

• I'm itchin' to raise a nice garden of my own, someday... not anytime soon, as I'm renting, and the house I'm currently living at has no yard. It occurs to me that if I want to have a garden, I need to have at least some knowledge and some experience with growing plants. (Either that, or significant amounts of dough. However, I'm convinced that the joy in growing your own food is directly proportional to how dirty you get.)
• I'm a prolific mint tea drinker. There's one ingredient in mint tea. Guess what it is.
• Mint is easy. And by "easy," I mean "nearly impossible to destroy." We had a good chunk of mint growing in the front yard of a rental house in Greensboro, which was mistakenly mown down by two homeless guys who were returning a favor. The stuff grew back in a matter of weeks, and I don't mean there were little shoots of it; I mean, it grew back to full height. So, a good choice for a novice plant-mommy.

As fate would have it, on the first Sunday of spring this year (March 22), Blue Ridge Botanicals came to the Takoma farmer's market with plenty of herbs in tow. I actually had to make a decision between a couple types of mint, which surprised me, to be honest. I went with the Kentucky Colonel Spearmint. Some research via google later revealed that there is a wide variety of mint plants and flavors, including chocolate and pineapple. If I ever figure out where to get some pineapple mint, you can bet I'll be growing it by the bucketfull.

That is, assuming that I'm more or less successful. It's been with me for about a month, and it's definitely grown. I should've been taking pictures of it all along; better late than never, right?

My mom told me that if you cut off the top leaves, the plant will sprout more "branches" (pretty sure they're not called branches, but I am a novice), giving it a bushier look. I've done this on about half the plant, but it looks as though the plant has decided to go bushy on its own.

So far, it has only registered dislike on one occasion. As I rushed to catch the bus to work back in March, I decided to set the plant outside for the day. It was only as I reached the bus stop that I realized how cold it was outside. Yeah, the poor thing was not very happy about that; it wilted, but I set it inside and it perked up overnight. Not kidding. I went to bed, and in the morning it was all, "bring on the dang sunshine!" I was floored.

The plant hasn't grown as much as I've thought it should. I'm trying to decide what that means: should I fertilize it, or water it less, or water it more, or try to fight the rampant aphid population, or combat those random flies that seem to congregate around it... or is it just the heightened expectations of an overachieving plant mommy? I haven't fertilized it yet, because I'm a cheapskate. There's no composter here, and I don't feel like investing in one. We don't have a yard, either, not to mention that composters seem to be fairly expensive (at least for a poor intern like me). I suppose the better option would be to go invest in some fertilizer. Le sigh. When I have my own place, you better believe I will compost everything.

Also, aphids. Good Lawd. There was a mint plant at my folks' place that succumbed to an aphid infestation. So I was prepared for those. But... the cheapskate thing. What to do?

To be honest, I just pick them off with my fingernails about once a week. Yeah, I kill them. I feel bad about it, well, I sort of do... I feel obliged to protect my little baby, I did buy it and give it a home and all. At this point, the plant is doing so well that the aphids don't seem to be doing much harm, so I may... MAY... be a bit lax about it.

But probably not.

It is sort of fun, anyway. I like the notion that I am spending time with my plant, and that we are breathing out good air for each other. And the picking. I am a notorious picker, so the aphid removal is therapeutic for me.

The current project is propogating the plant. I want to start another plant, and I want to give one to Matt. Using information I got from this PDF on growing mint, I decided to cut off a few shoots and see what happens. I stuck one in a jar of water, and I stuck one in a yogurt pot full of soil, watered it liberally, and sealed it all up in a plastic bag. This was on Wednesday evening.

24 hours later, the mint in the water was doing just fine, but the shoot in the pot looked miserable. Knowing that wilting doesn't necessarily mean death, I decided at first that the thing was suffocating. I took the bag off and let it sit overnight, but it looked the same when I woke up on Friday morning. Screw it, said I, and plopped the thing down in some water before I went to work. When I came home, it was acting as if nothing had happened.

Also, as of this morning (Saturday, only 2.5 days later), I have visual evidence of a root!

I suppose I should also mention that I have been trying to grow an apple tree. Matt and I collectively saved 44 apple seeds, and I let them dry for a week or so. Just as an experiment, I put 22 of them in a moist paper towel in a baggie in the fridge, and I put 22 of them a half-inch deep in the yogurt pot with the mint plant. (Dumb idea, but I am trying to economize.) I guess another dumb thing I did was I mixed in about 5 seeds from a granny smith apple; the rest are pink lady. Not that it really matters, except granny smiths apparently need a warmer climate. Oh well, I'll let natural selection do its thang.

I doubt very much that the seeds in the pot will sprout. Turns out apple seeds need to be cold before they sprout (i.e. winter). Well, we'll see. Timetables vary from source to source; Wikihow says they'll sprout after a week of refrigeration, but these guys say that it takes three months.

I guess I should also mention that "wild" apple trees, such as the ones I'm attempting to grow, don't neccessarily grow fruit, and even then, they don't necessarily grow tasty fruit. Also, they take five or ten years to even begin to grow fruit. Turns out, interestingly, that commercial apple trees have to have their roots grafted? Or something? In order to keep them stunted. And then, they're pollinated specially to produce any given apple, like the pink lady or fuji or what have you. I'm not really expecting anything. But there's no harm in it; who ever heard of a problem with too many trees?