Bits and Pieces
(Page 2 of 3)
July/August 1973
By the Mother Earth News editors
"Forget savings accounts, real estate, bonds and the stock market," says Pick. "Buy gold bars ... the only thing that will count." For U.S. Citizens, who are legally prohibited from making such purchases, the currency expert advises the accumulation of gold "collector's" coins.
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I assume that Dr. Pick is thinking of speculative investments in buildings, developments, etc.— and not homestead—size pieces of land — when he states that we should "forget real estate" as a hedge against his projected crash. A chunk of acreage large enough to feed a family has — time and again — proven itself the safest of all havens in which to weather a depression. And is a depression what Pick sees in the future? He doesn't say... only that "what lies ahead is very unpleasant".
BOTH THE RALPH NADER-BACKED HEALTH RESEARCH GROUP OF WASHINGTON and Consumer Reports Magazine have called for the ban of Red Dye No. 2. The coloring, widely used in everything from pill coatings to soft drinks to ice cream to chewing gum to lipstick, has been found to impair reproduction and increase infant mortality. The Food and Drug Administration, at last report, was studying the possibility of limiting the amount of the dye that can be added to food products but had made no final decision in the matter.
DUE TO THIS SUMMER'S REAL OR CONTRIVED FUEL SHORTAGE, service stations in some parts of the country have already begun limiting the amount of gasoline that their customers may buy. When one California motorist was thus restricted over the Memorial Day weekend, he reportedly became so enraged that he shot and killed the attendant who had refused to "fill 'er up".
This, of course, leads one to speculate on the turn our "civilization" might take when and if the world's population outreaches the available food supply. After mulling over the possibility, one senior executive of a large computer company is said to have remarked at the Third European Management Seminar held recently in Switzerland: "I think they'll be eating human flesh in the streets of New York, London and Paris in 20 years or so."
DR. D.P. DAVIES of the Welsh National School of Medicine has taken a strong stand against the still-growing trend away from mother's milk for young babies. Recent evidence, Dr. Davies feels, shows that the too-early feeding of cow's milk and solid food to infants overloads their partially developed kidneys with larger quantities of soluble protein than they can handle. In severe cases, Davies reports, this can lead to breakdown of the kidney function and—at worst—consequent brain damage, Early solid food can also encourage excessive weight gain, according to the doctor, and thereby set the stage for obesity in later life. "Breast milk is quite adequate for normal growth during the first three to five months of a baby's life," Dr. Davies concludes.
