By:  Lee Ann Rush                                                     The topic is water; specifically, its availability to the public in light of Nestle CEO Peter Brabeck’s recent megalomaniacal assertion that people should only have access to water if they pay for it.  In a world where water shortages are reason for concern as demand begins to exceed supply, Brabeck’s plan for everyone to pay Nestle and its ilk for the privilege of obtaining a life-sustaining necessity that falls from the sky and can be pumped from the ground is the ultimate statement of corporate greed.  Upon learning of this, my first reaction, after utter disgust at this sorry excuse for a human being’s hubris, was, “Well, at least I’m not contributing to this evil scheme; I don’t buy Nestlé’s bottled water.”  Wrong!  I’ve since learned that Nestle, headquartered in Switzerland and the world’s largest purveyor of processed foods, is actually responsible for a third of bottled-water sales in the United States.  Nestle-produced water is sold not only as Nestle Pure Life, but also marketed under 70 other brand names including Arrowhead, Deer Park, Perrier and Poland Spring!  I’d had no idea. A bit of research into Nestle’s tactics revealed how this greed machine manages to make a $35 billion annual profit on bottled-water sales in the US alone.  Nestle has long advocated for public-private water partnerships, such as the deal they struck several years ago with McCloud, a tiny northern California town (population 1400) whose water supply is fed by glacial springs from Mt. Shasta.  Some highlights

By:  Lee Ann Rush We’ve discussed the stranglehold that the giant food-processing conglomerates have on our domestic food supply several times, always recommending that people choose wisely by limiting processed foods, buying local (preferably organic) produce in season, and taking a shot at growing their own backyard or container gardens.  One thing we haven’t talked about is drinking water, something that most of us here in the United States take for granted.  If you’d asked me back when I was in high school if I’d pay to buy bottled drinking water, I’d have laughed; why would anyone pay for something that comes free from the kitchen tap and is perfectly fine?  Back then, my parents had a well; our water came from the ground and, aside from it being “hard” water (i.e., it contained minerals that caused rust in the toilets), it was just fine — unless the power went out and the pump didn’t operate. Fast forward to the present; my mother still has a well at her house but won’t drink the water from it because the local wells have been contaminated by pesticides and other chemicals (a topic for another day).  She buys bottled water for drinking and cooking, and, I must admit, I also drink bottled water regularly now.  I use water from the tap for everything else, but don’t care much for the taste of what’s supplied by the county water company.  Still, my municipal water bill is well under $200 a year.  While I’ve chosen to drink bottled water, I was

Oh how we enjoy and look forward to our morning cup of coffee. It is a daily part of most American people, not to mention also people from all over the world. Americans consume more than one-third of the total of the total amount of coffee produced in the world. All coffee is grown between the tropic of Cancer and the tropic of Capricorn, which represent two “imaginary lines” that circle our globe. It is here in the middle of our world approximately 23 degrees north and south of the equator , the climate is warm and humid, this is necessary conditions for growing the sensitive coffee plant. These required conditions are where the issues to the environment stem from with the cultivation and production of coffee plants. Coffee is really a fruit tree. Coffee branches form delicate blossoms that last for little more than a day. These blossoms then become coffee cherries which look like the real cherry fruit itself. For the plant to produce can take 3 to 5 years, which is only possible with the proper combination of climate, rain, sunshine, and shade. The two most commercially cultivated varieties of coffee are Arabica and Robusta. They do best in rich, volcanic mountain soil. Higher elevations allow the bean to grow more allow the bean to grow more slowly, which in turn provides a more aromatic and flavorful end product. Arabica coffee is considered a higher quality coffee. Arabica is harder to grow and is not as hardy