I am sure that everyone is just dying to know who won the set of essential oils from Plant Therapy! The lucky winner is Ceste in Florida! I would have loved to send a full kit out to everyone who entered, (I spent some time looking at all your websites posted in the comments on my blog, and you are a truly cool and amazing bunch!) but if you didn’t win, don’t fret! We had enough entrants to get a surprise bonus – I was given a coupon code for you all that is good for $10 off a purchase of $10 or more – The discount coupon code is naturalfamily10 and it starts today and expires at 11:59 pm MST on the 26th. To use your coupon, go to www.planttherapy.com!
Monthly Archives: February 2013
Winner!! Essential Oil Giveaway
Chicken Poop and Cookies: Food for Cows?
At one time someone posted a comment on my Raw Milk facebook page explaining how while he was in college (can’t remember which one) he did some kind of animal husbandry internship where it was his job to try to get cows to eat chicken litter. They had to try all kinds of things because the cows were not naturally inclined to eat it. For those of you wondering what chicken litter is, it is basically straw or wood shavings and chicken poop that is scooped up off the floor of the chicken coop while cleaning it. Yum.
I had some skepticism when I first read that cows were fed old chicken house bedding that contained chicken manure, because it seemed so crazy to me, but after a little research into “feedstuffs” for cattle, there were all kinds of unsavory things that cows are fed. Here is an incomplete list of the things that I discovered on various university extension and cattle industry websites:
Chicken litter (Chicken manure and straw or wood chips)
Shredded newspapers soaked in molasses
Blood meal (dried blood from slaughter house waste)
Animal byproducts: fish meal, meat and bone meal, poultry by-product meal, etc. (slaughter house waste – wait, isn’t this what caused mad cow disease??)
Hydrolyzed Feather Meal (AKA chicken feathers – also slaughterhouse waste – this REALLY eliminates the humor in those chic-fil-a commercials)
Stale candy: gummy bears, gummy worms, m&ms, etc.
Pasta (old surplus pasta)
Surplus french fries and potato chips
Cannery waste (waste from canning factories where canned vegetables etc are processed)
Stale bakery goods: breads, donuts, pastries, etc.
Soy cakes (left over after making soy sauce)
Brewery waste: spent grains from making beer (this is what caused the problems that led lawmakers to decide that milk needed to be pasteurized after milk from cows that were fed brewery waste sickened and killed hundreds of people.)
Rotten potatoes that never made it to grocery store shelves. (This only after potatoes useable for making frozen french fries are separated out. My father used to work at a factory that made frozen french fries, and the place smelled like a sewer. The potatoes used for fries were rotten, but not completely mush yet. They would soak them in a solution to harden them again, then bleach them, then cut them into fries and flash freeze them. The potatoes that couldn’t even survive this process are sold as animal feed.)
Soy hulls (a byproduct from the soybean milling process)
Corn, cottonseed, soy, peanut, and other ‘meals’ (leftover from making oils)
Cotton gin trash (leftover from harvesting and milling cotton)
Peanut shells
Grain middlings (left over from milling flour)
Citrus pulp (leftover after making orange or grapefruit juice)
Cane byproducts (leftover after making sugar)
Beet pulp (from sugar beets in sugar production)
Sweetos a cheaper substitute for molasses. Sweetos guarantees the masking of unpleasant tastes and odor and improves the palatability of feed according to Monsanto spokesperson (so that cows will eat all of the unnatural feedstuffs that they are being given)
(See this list of cattle ‘feedstuffs’ from the University of Wisconsin)
Which of these cattle would you prefer as your food source?
If we are what we eat, (and so are our cows) what have you eaten today?
Essential Oil Giveaway From Plant Therapy
I am very excited to do my first official product giveaway! I admit that I was skeptical when Plant Therapy approached me to do a review of their essential oils – there are so many essential oil companies out there all claiming to have the one and only therapeutic grade oils. So, I said that if they could send me a sample, and if it passed my quality tests, then I would be happy to write a review and then do a giveaway, but I only offer things to my readers if they are something that I would feel good about using myself. So they agreed, and a few days later, a package arrived in the mail. It was beautifully presented gift package containing 14 different 10 ml oils – 7 singles, and 7 blends or synergies – All 100% pure, therapeutic grade oils: Sensual , Energy, Germ Fighter, Relax, Immune-Aid, Tranquil, Invigor-Aid, Lavender, Peppermint, Eucalyptus, Tea Tree, Orange, Lemon & Cinnamon.
The first thing that I did was to do a paper test. A paper test is where you take a drop of essential oil and put it on a piece of paper. If the oil leaves a greasy residue behind after evaporating, then it contains fillers, or is not 100% pure. Here is a photo that I took immediately after putting 6 randomly selected oils on a sheet of copy paper – (3 singles, and 3 of the synergies) 
And then I took another photo of the paper after several hours. On checking, the paper was completely dry, with no oiliness to the touch. The tranquil synergy left behind a light yellow, but only due to the fact that the oils in that blend have some pigment that stained the paper, but the paper felt completely dry.
The next thing that I did was compare the oils to other therapeutic grade oils that I have in my home. I have oils from a few different companies that I use regularly, including doTERRA, Young Living, Butterfly Express, and Mountain Rose Herbs. I also have some cheaper brand oils that I keep for comparison to show people the differences between quality oils and the better brands. The first and most telling characteristic is the smell of the oils. Quality oils have a nice clean smell, while the cheaper oils tend to have a bitter ‘after-smell.’ The plant therapy oils all smelled very clean, as you would expect from oils that are steam distilled, rather than chemically extracted. 
I also read their website, and saw on a very long and impressive list of choices, that all of their oils are either steam distilled or cold pressed, and another bonus: Plant Therapy is not an MLM company, so their prices are also very reasonable! At this point, I felt very comfortable with adding these oils to my set that I use for Foot Zoning, and found that I was regularly choosing one of the Plant Therapy synergies while muscle testing oils for clients.
I think that my favorite is the Tranquil synergy blend, which contains bergamot, patchouli, blood orange, ylang ylang, and grapefruit – probably because it is very citrusy, and I also really like patchouli oil. Another favorite is the Invigor-Aid, a great pick-me-up blend that contains sandalwood, black pepper, and lemon.
So, with no further ado – I would LOVE for all of you dear readers to have the chance to win this great set of oils to use in your own home! For your best chance to win, here is what you need to do:
1. Follow my blog by clicking the “follow this blog” button on the Networked Blogs widget in the right hand sidebar. Then, leave a comment here, stating why you think that you should win.
2. don’t forget to ‘like’ the Plant Therapy facebook page, and leave a comment on their page telling what product you would like to try. http://www.facebook.com/PlantTherapy
3. Share the link with as many friends as possible!
4. To improve your chances, you can become a fan of one or both of my facebook pages at http://www.facebook.com/100PercentNaturalFamily, and/or http://www.facebook.com/FindRawMilk
5. Share this link with your friends and leave a comment under the giveaway post on my facebook page – either the Raw Milk page or 100% Natural Family :).
If there are more than 750 entries, there will be a special surprise giveaway at the end! I plan to announce a winner on Saturday February 16th, so keep watching and may the best fan win!
