My Fear of Spiders

     My sister-in-law-to-be once posted on her blog about her fear of spiders so I thought I'd do the same. I don't really know why, well I kinda do, but I am petrified of spiders. No I am not afraid of most other bugs, but if they're big, why would I not be afraid of them. Just saying. But spiders are another story. I hate them! They're so ugly and big, well most of the time. 
     Every summer, I spend some time in Tennessee where they have a lot spiders. The first two days are very hard. My aunt lives on a lake with spiders everywhere. Thankfully many of these are small and easy to deal with after I am used to them. But there are some big ones. You can tell the size of the spider by the size of the scream. I can scream very loud when they're very large, but when they're small, I kinda screech. It's really funny. One time there was a spider that was probably two inches long and you could hear me scream three houses away ( that's just a guess). I wouldn't go near the dock for at least a few hours, which is a long time. 
     I think this very irrational fear came from when I was little. I live in New Mexico and we have Black Widows, which are just creepy for they're own reasons. I mean how could you eat your husband. Well anyways, in our backyard we this wheelbarrow, In the wheelbarrow a black widow colony decided to build their nest. There must have been hundreds of black widows. I still remember this memory very vividly. That's probably why I'm scared of spiders. 

The Shocking Ingredients in Hot Dogs and Other Processed Meats

     I think that people would not eat just anything if they knew what was actually inside of it. Take hot dogs, for instance, they have some shocking ingredients.
     I always read the labels on foods before I buy it and one of the main ingredients in mechanically separated poultry. That doesn't sound too bad. Just machines instead of humans separating the chicken. But in my research, I found that these machines actually crush the meat as well as the bones into meat. Yum...calcium. I do not actually like being treated like a dog, but if you do, go for it.
     Other ingredients in hot dogs include pork and beef. If it is not labeled as mechanically separated, do not fret, you are not being fed dog bones. But...almost. The companies scrape the bones to as raw as possible to attain as much "meat" as they are able to. I do not want meat scrapings in my food!
     Sodium Nitrate is a preservative that they claim increases your chance of a heart disease. It's one of those things that they're telling you it's terrible now, but in five years, it couldn't be better. It's kinda like butter. In the 20th century, all you ever knew was butter is bad for you, eat margarine(don't eat margarine). But now they say butter is so good for you that you could eat a stick a day. Okay, that might be a tiny bit excessive, but you understand my point. 
     Even though they tell you to check your labels, not everything is on the labels, which could create a problem. Sometimes ingredients are simply listed as natural and artificial flavoring, or flavor, or spices. What a person is allergic to a very specific spice? Are they supposed to avoid all foods with "spice" in them, or just wing it? Well I guess that depends on how allergic to that spice you are. 
     So now you know. When you see that hot dog, don't reach for it. It's not worth the anatomy.