I adapted this torte recipe from a site called Mandelininc.com which has yummy ideas for almond flour goodies. The recipe I based mine on is called Chocolate Citrus Almond Torte.

Finally, I just wanted to share some disturbing information that I garnered from an article in this Sunday's New York Times. Nicholas D. Kristof wrote a very informative piece on the use of antibiotics in factory farming. According to his article we, “need to curb the way modern agribusiness madly overuses antibiotics, leaving them ineffective for sick humans.”

Did you know that 70% of the antibiotics used in this country are administered to healthy farm animals. Why is this done? It helps the animals grow faster and bulk up, making them, of course, more valuable. Meat is sold by the pound –think quantity, not quality.

The danger of this practice? With antibiotics so prevalent, new “super bugs” are developing that are resistant to all existing anti-biotics. According to Kristof, more than 18,000 people are dying each year from these new strains of disease that are now untreatable with even the most powerful antibiotics. Pretty scary to think that after close to a century of antibiotic use we could slip back into a world where bacterial diseases (such as tuberculosis) are untreatable and ravage our population on a large scale as they once did.

What can we do? First, if you can avoid all animal products from CAFO farms (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations). These types of farms crowd animals into unsanitary conditions, creating infection and of course increasing the need for the administration of prophylactic antibiotics. If you can, purchase organic meats/eggs/dairy from a farmer/rancher in your area (grass fed meat is actually best, however, that's another story altogether).

And for all you vegans out there –kudos for not supporting the animal product industry in any way, however, these antibiotic resistant infections are contagious to everyone. They originate in a farm and can mutate to our bodies in many ways, not just by eating meat.

I am hardly an expert on this issue, nor do I claim to be. So please, those of you that have more information, leave a comment and let's figure out what else we can do to change this frightening trend.