Green french beans on my platter these days

Recently i've been eating a lot of green (french) beans, which i believe is very high in dietary fiber and good for the immune system. I have suddenly began blogging a lot about health after neglecting my own, and landed up being very ill! anyway, my darling fussy kids too have began loving to eat beans, which normally they don't. You know the kids.. the very sight of 'greens' make them want to avoid meals or so, but i was not the one to give up and now they're enjoying beans in yummy carrot, bean and macaroni soup which we've been having daily! I know we're in the summers, yet i think soup is appetizing and beneficial to our bodies in many ways. I've also been cooking chow-mein(fried noodles) at home, which we normally have at restaurants. I guess there is nothing more satisfying than a homemade meal cooked with love and care :)

I didn't know one can fry these green beans... i mean in batter, etc... looking around i found this recipe online which i am going to share with you, and will be trying very soon too. Maybe tomorrow, because i cant already wait to taste the results! must be really crispy and crunchy :)

Buttermilk Fried Green Beans

Ingredients:
1 lb. green beans
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 cups flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. salt plus more for sprinkling
1/4 tsp. cayenne (optional but delicious)
Oil for frying

Method:
Trim, rinse, and thoroughly dry the green beans. Put them in a medium bowl and toss with buttermilk to coat.
Combine flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, and cayenne in a large bowl or re-sealable plastic bag. Drain green beans and toss them in the flour mixture to coat thoroughly.
Bring about 1/2 inch oil in a wide, heavy pot to 350-375 degrees over high heat. Adjust heat to maintain that temperature range. Test temperature using a thermometer or by dipping the handle of a wooden spoon into the oil. If the oil bubbles around the handle, it is hot enough to fry the beans.
Shake excess flour mixture off beans as you add enough of them to form a single layer in the oil. Fry until golden to medium brown and beans are tender, about 3 minutes. Transfer with tongs or a slotted spoon to a cooling rack set over paper towels. Sprinkle with salt and serve hot. Repeat with remaining beans.

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Buttermilk Fried Green Bean bundles

In the image below, you can take four to five green beans at a time and bundle them together, tie them with green onion(onion leak) strips and add seasoning. Dip the bundles into a batter (ingredient above), and deep fry till golden brown. Relish the crispy, crumchy bean bundles with tomato ketchup!

What if Pittsburgh drafts Tebow?

I know this is a sports post... but it isn't really about sports...or is it? The NFL draft is hours away, and one of the most talked about prospects faces a major hurdle that might prevent some teams from drafting him... his Christianity.

As a Michigan fan, I never really cared much for the Tim Tebow hype, until I learned that he appeared to be a pretty upstanding guy. For those that don't know, Tebow was the Quarterback at Florida, won a Heisman Trophy, and was thrust to the center of the stage on more than one occasion for being a great....... Christian.

This has been a constant focus since about two years ago when Tebow came out and proclaimed that he is a Virgin. Since then, the media onslaught of "Is Tim Tebow the Good Guy Everyone Claims That He Is" headlines have been unceasing. The question has been asked whether a team is ready for that kind of "attention." Which is odd... because Tebow has another "problem."

Tebow was a great COLLEGE quarterback. He ran an offense in a system that was built around him and his skill set... or was it? You see, the system that Florida ran isn't a PRO style offense. Meaning... that Tebow played a style of football that doesn't really translate well to the pros. If you aren't an avid football fan you might say, "does that matter?" Well most of the time it does matter. But in Tebow's case, many think his raw athletic talent should be enough.

Then there is the question about his THROWING technique. This has been called into question, and he actually worked on it, attempting to change it prior to the draft. This is a pretty big change. You would think that hours before the draft that the number one thing writers would be discussing is his style of quarterback or his throwing motion.

You would be wrong. Instead, they are talking about his Christianity. Why is that? Should that be an "issue"? Well it is... and a BIG ONE:

Nothing will divide quite like religion. And while football often embraces Christianity and legions of the NFL’s top players have carried the cross with various levels of openness, there has never been a player like Tebow who so boldly, so proudly and so gracefully expressed devotion that the player known for his goodness has actually drawn a more visceral reaction than those players who are at their core, truly bad.


“I don’t want any part of him or the circus,” one AFC front office executive told Yahoo! Sports’ Michael Silver recently. “At some point as a team, don’t you have to be concerned with what comes with him? The guy has never met a microphone he didn’t like and he’s obviously got a message. I think he needs to go away and hide for awhile.”


The first round of the NFL draft comes Thursday evening and the most compelling prospect might not be selected until the second night. Still a debate rages about Tebow never for any player before: about his game, about his life and about his religion. Last month a SI.com writer authored a personal blog post entitled “I Want Tim Tebow to Fail” and none of the story was about Tebow’s sidearm delivery or his still-developing footwork but rather his evangelical Christianity and the mission of his father Bob Tebow’s evangelistic ministry in the Philippines which boasts fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible.


It is hardly the only such opinion floating around about the quarterback. In fact, most thoughts on him tend to the extreme.


“The way his fans talk about him is almost idolatry,” says Tom Krattenmaker, the author of Onward Christian Athletes, a study of players’ self expressions of religion. “I’ve never seen so much intensity, pro and con, of any Christian athlete ever. There is a tendency for those who admire players who are devoted to their faith to place them on a pedestal but this [adulation] is on steroids. It’s been super-hyped to a higher degree.”

Look, I can understand if a team sees something as a distraction. But they aren't phrasing it as a distraction, or concern. They use words like: "circus", "visceral", "message [pejoratively]", "fail", "idolatry", "adulation on steroids". Really? Are we really concerned about this? Look at Ben Roethlisberger's latest escapes. Is that the "circus" teams should desire? Or how about Michael Vick?

So I pose the question. What if a team, like Pittsburgh with their Roethlisberger and Holmes problems of late, decided to send a message by drafting Tebow? What if Pittsburgh, trades Ben Roethlisberger to a team below them, for an extra pick, and draft Tebow at the 18 spot? It would give them a good first round pick, plus Tebow, and they would be rid of "Big Ben." Sure, it is unlikely. But what a statement that would make.

I wish I was a General Manager to do things like that. We are talking the business of guesses anyways. I mean, look at the Detroit Lions, they throw away draft picks every year. I would love to be a general manager and send a message that athletes are role models and we need to hold them to that.

It will be interesting to see who takes Tebow. Word on the street it is Jacksonville, hoping to capitalize on the Florida connection. He also seems to fit that "system." But wouldn't it be nice if someone made a statement? Unfortunately money rules the game, and owners are less worried about stars getting in trouble, eg Roethlisberger, and more worried about revenue.

Just found this:
Tebow to Steelers - No Joke!

A good Catholic way to celebrate "Earth Day"

...eat or wear something from the Earth. God made it that way.

Mmmmmmmmm

If you want to be CHARITABLE on Earth Day, check out the "Hunt Fund." That way you can tell all your hippie friends that you donated to charity on Earth Day.You just wanted  to make sure Old Man Earth keeps operating like it should.

Maintain a healthy lifestyle with herbalife

Heath is so important to everyone but most people neglect themselves, and instead indulge in various bad habits like not eating right or maintaining a proper fitness regime or diet in their daily lives. We must incoperate a proper balanced diet and plenty of physical activity (30 mins a day is fine) in our daily active lives to help our well-being throughout our lives. No-one is exceptional and this applies to everyone. So if you love your life and still not sure about how to maintain a healthy lifestyle try nutritional counselling from Herbalife.

Inadequate dietary intake is not considered a direct cause of most common diseases in France, it is recognized that nutrition is implicated in the development of these diseases. So, everyone is recommended an intake of fruits and veggies-5 times a day, bread, cereals, pulses-according to appetite at each meal, milk and milk products- 3 to 4 times a day, meat, fish poultry- 1 to 2 times a day.

Vaccines & Abortion

I know this article appears long but it is VERY IMPORTANT. If the title is in anywhere significant to you please read this post and follow the links.

Major Sword-Tip (aka Hat-tip) to The Badger Catholic on this story:

"Which Vaccines contain aborted babies?"

The BC links to a Right to Life of Michigan article that explains how many of the Vaccines that we administer (or don't in some cases) to Children in this country actually contain cellular elements of aborted babies are produced from cellular lines taken from aborted babies. [A note of clarification: The clarification here is for precision purposes. My goal is not to scare or "trick" people into thinking that aborted baby "cells" are being used to make these vaccines. The vaccines are constructed from cellular lines. This is no way changes the gravity of this situation.]

RTL of Michigan explains:

For several years now, information has circulated among prolife groups and individuals regarding the development of very common vaccines through the use of tissue taken from aborted babies. While initially the reports and information were not conclusively documented, further detailed research by several prolife groups has provided direct proof of a connection between aborted fetal tissue and most vaccines. That connection, and its implications for whether prolife citizens should consider using the vaccines, raises some complicated issues. In sorting through those issues, this LifeNotes will address the basic science involved, the documentation of the abortion-vaccine connection, the moral/ethical questions about using abortion-tainted vaccines, and information about available alternative vaccines.

This is a SHOCKING report. As someone who considers themselves pretty "up" on RTL issues, this one has escaped me. Sure I heard rumblings of this in the past, but as RTLM says, it was inconclusive speculation for a long time, so I didn't really every think to much about it.

Apparently The Badger Catholic was thinking about it, because they posted this story only a week ago about a measure in the Minnesota Legislature that would force pharma companies to list vaccine "ingredients." See that post here: Minnesota Vaccine Bill Proposal

Well, now it appears that Right to Life of Michigan has a conclusive list and puts it out there for all to see. Maybe this is something that everyone already knew about, but I sure didn't. As a newer father, I have not heard *one* Catholic parent talk about this anywhere, even those VERY OPPOSED to vaccines for other reasons.

Here is a list of alternative Vaccines that use non-fetal cell lines from non-human sources.

I think what is MOST shocking is that there are NO alternatives to the CHICKENPOX and RUBELLA Vaccines, two vaccines which many states require school children receive prior to entry into the public and even somtimes private school system. I plan on doing more on this story later but I wanted to get this out there. This may have HUGE implications in terms of "Religious Exemptions" for Catholic parents morally opposed to their children get vaccinated with fetal cell line vaccines. Here is what Right to Life says about the Moral implications:

Should These Vaccines Be Used? The Moral & Ethical ConsiderationsThe ethical quandary created by the tainting of these otherwise beneficial vaccines is obvious and vexing. Parents are more than justified in wanting to protect their children from these potentially life-threatening diseases. It can be legitimately argued that parents have an obligation to take reasonable steps to protect their children. Likewise, as a society, we must take into consideration the morality and cost of failing to prevent widespread outbreaks of disease. Thus, there is a civic responsibility associated with vaccines and controlling diseases.

The moral perspective of those who are utterly opposed to the use of these vaccines is straightforward and equally justifiable. If these vaccines were developed from cell lines taken from Jews murdered in Nazi concentration camps, it is not difficult to imagine that there would be widespread, if not universal rejection of those vaccines. Since many prolifers see no difference between the moral magnitude of abortion and the Holocaust, their passionate refusal to use these vaccines is completely understandable.

When dealing with difficult ethical issues like vaccines grown on the tissue of aborted children, one of the main questions to answer is how do individuals act in a moral way when they are acting in a world that is filled with immorality. For example, should a person watch no television programming on a certain network because some of its programming is immoral? It is crucial to remember that the moral nature of any act depends first on the action itself. Secondly, the intention of the individual is also a crucial factor. The further away the current act (using a vaccine) and intent (protecting a child from a disease) of an individual are from a previous immoral act (aborting a child), the less that individual is restricted by the immorality of the previous act. While the act of aborting the child was certainly immoral, all of the steps involved with the development and use of the vaccines thereafter neither cooperated with the abortion, nor intended to promote more such practices, nor intended anything but the preservation of life and health.

The Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life, and the U.S. and British bishops conferences have studied the issue in detail and concluded that using the vaccines is morally permissible. However, once a person learns that certain vaccines are morally tainted, there is an obligation to seek out ethical alternatives where possible and to make objections known to health care providers and vaccine manufacturers. In addition, parents are entirely justified in citing a "conscientious objection" to tainted vaccines being used to immunize their children, particularly when the vaccine is not for a substantially threatening illness (Chickenpox, flu). Parents have a right to demand ethical alternatives be used or reject the vaccine if an alternative is not available.

A number of noted prolife activists have weighed in on both sides of the issue. Some have encouraged parents to use and demand nothing less than morally acceptable vaccines. While others like Jack Wilke, M.D., former National Right to Life Committee president and Bernard Nathanson, M.D., prolife activist and creator of "The Silent Scream" have opined that using the vaccines is morally allowable.

What is unanimous among all commentators on the subject is that everyone ought to know of the facts surrounding the vaccines, and prolife citizens should make an effort to persuade - even pressure - vaccine producers to eliminate their tainted products in favor of ethically acceptable products.