Archive for the ‘Food Policy’ Category
Food Matters Review
August 10th, 2009
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We watched Food Matters for the second time this weekend. It’s a very informative movie about how food and nutrients can heal us from so many common and serious ailments and how important it is.
The movie has a number of well know and knowledgeable speakers including, Charlotte Gerson, Andrew Saul, David Wolfe, Philip Day, Dr. Dan Rodgers and more. I have to say, I’ve been involved in alternative healing and nutrition for over 30 years and there were some new things I learned from this movie.
Here’s just a small sampling of information from the movie:
The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) is the amount needed to prevent disease, not the amount needed for good health.
Medical professionals treat disease with medicine. They treat symptoms but don’t know a lot about curing disease. Food and nutrition is about cures.
The drug companies don’t want nutrients and diet to be the cure it will put them out of business. “Good health makes a lot of sense but it doesn’t make a lot of dollars”.
Our Society has long term malnutrition, that is leading to many health problems. Much of this has to do with the quality of our food; it being genetically modified, full of pesticides, our soil being depleted and our food not being fresh. Supermarket produce is on average at least a week old when you buy it. All these factors leads to deficiencies.
There’s also a lot of information about high dose vitamin therapy, such as vitamin C. Vitamin C as a cure for viruses, (swine flu?) have been documented by doctors since the 1940’s. It’s an impressive and important body of knowledge that’s being ignored and pushed under the carpet by physicians and the drug companies. Less then 6% of M.D.’s have any nutrition education.
In the UK – and I would guess that the number are similar here – 3x more people are killed by adverse drug reaction, then by car accidents. And these are for people taking the drug as directed, not overdoses or accidents.
There are 2 dozen nutrients, that are responsible for countless thousands of chemical reactions in our body so vitamin deficiencies can cause many diseases. “You nourish the body and the body heals”
One of my favorite quotes was by Andrew Saul, “What if they gave everyone in America free health care [which they should!], but nobody needed it?”
This movie has lots of information about teaching people for be healthy and responsible for their own health care. “Education not medication”
The movie contains lots of vital information, presented in an educational, yet entertaining way.
The filmmakers website is here, www.FoodMatters.tv
Read more, great, Real Food Wednesday posts here: http://www.cheeseslave.com/2009/08/11/real-food-wednesday-august-12-2009/
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Why our family eats organically grown food
We had a very dear friend visiting over the Christmas holiday and she was surprised at the number of organic food items we have around here. “Organic Coffee!” she said, surprised.
It got me thinking about why we eat organic foods. I’ve been eating natural and healthy food since college. I was ill in my freshman year and the school doctor suggested I eat a bit more carefully. So, I started researching diet, food, and various methods of alternative healing. I learned a lot about how the food you eat can effect your health.
When my kids were little the news started discussing pesticides being sprayed on apples and how it was potentially unsafe for kids. Then I heard the same about grapes and raisins. I started looking for organic foods. At that time (late 1980s) it wasn’t always easy or affordable! Organic farming was still relatively new and you could only get organic produce and products at the local health food store, but I got what I could and found that even if the produce sometimes looked a little funny (organic used to be less perfect most of the time) it tasted great.
As the kids got older there were more important reasons to look for organic alternatives.
We’ve been having a quiet takeover going on in our food industry. Monsanto and some of the other food giants have been replacing all of our commercial crops with genetically engineered food crops. Corn and soy have been the most prevalent and there are a lot of health concerns. What’s really ‘food for thought’ is that corn and soy are in most commercially processed foods. High Fructose corn syrup is in everything from frozen foods to soda.
Dr. Joseph Mercola (http://www.mercola.com/2000/dec/3/ge_food.htm) says:
“The technology of genetic engineering (GE), wielded by transnational “life science” corporations such as Monsanto and Novartis, is the practice of altering or disrupting the genetic blueprints of living organisms — plants, animals, humans, microorganisms — patenting them, and then selling the resulting gene-foods, seeds, or other products for profit.”
There’s also been genetic engineering going on in our milk products with recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH/BST). Shirley’s Wellness café has a great article. Here’s a snippet:
What is rBGH?
Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone is a genetically engineered copy of a naturally occurring hormone produced by cows. Manufactured by Monsanto Company, the drug is sold to dairy farmers under the name POSILAC, though you’ll also find it called BGH, rBGH, BST and rBST. When rBGH gets injected into dairy cows, milk production increases by as much as 10-15%. The use of rBGH on dairy cows was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in late 1993 and has been in use since 1994. While rBGH is banned in Europe and Canada, and has been boycotted by 95 percent of US dairy farmers, the FDA, Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Agriculture continue to license the drug (and other new genetically engineered foods) without pre-market safety tests. You can read the rest of the article at the link below.
http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/bgh.htm
Just like you can find food labeled organic (which also means that it’s NOT genetically engineered you can find milk and cheese products labeled ‘No rBGH/BST’.
I figure it’s another good reason to eat organically as much as you can. Every little bit helps.
In recent years organic has gone mainstream. Most supermarkets have an organic produce section and we can even get organic products at Costco. Farm stands and Farmers markets are another great way to find organic and local produce. The costs have become more reasonable too. The more we buy organic foods the more incentive there will be for farmers to switch their growing process and it’s a great opportunity for small/medium family farms that have been run out of business by the big corporations. It’s healthier for the growers not to be around all those pesticides, it’s better for the environment and it’s safer for us to eat.
And, don’t forget the good taste!
Here is a UK site that has a great article on the 10 Top reasons to go Organic: http://www.organicfood.co.uk/topten.html
Here’s another one, in the US by the Soil Association:
http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/Living/10reasons.html
This is a great resource about all things organic. They have a great newsletter as well as tons of info (and action alerts if you’re so inclined) about genetically engineered food: http://www.organicconsumers.org
Read more great Real Food Wednesday posts here, http://www.cheeseslave.com/2009/07/29/real-food-wednesday-july-29-2009/
HR 2749: Food Safety’s Scorched Earth Policy
HR 2749: Food Safety’s Scorched Earth Policy
Barbara H. Peterson
HR 2749 is being rushed through Congress, and the house may look to suspend the rules and fast track the bill at Obama’s request. Just what can we expect from this legislation? A lot more of the following:
Dick Peixoto planted hedges of fennel and flowering cilantro around his organic vegetable fields in the Pajaro Valley near Watsonville to harbor beneficial insects, an alternative to pesticides.
He has since ripped out such plants in the name of food safety, because his big customers demand sterile buffers around his crops. No vegetation. No water. No wildlife of any kind.
“I was driving by a field where a squirrel fed off the end of the field, and so 30 feet in we had to destroy the crop,” he said. “On one field where a deer walked through, didn’t eat anything, just walked through and you could see the tracks, we had to take out 30 feet on each side of the tracks and annihilate the crop.”
In the verdant farmland surrounding Monterey Bay, a national marine sanctuary and one of the world’s biological jewels, scorched-earth strategies are being imposed on hundreds of thousands of acres in the quest for an antiseptic field of greens. And the scheme is about to go national. (Lochhead, C. )
The question that must be asked is, do we really want to destroy our local organic farming industry by poisoning ponds, bulldozing crops and killing wildlife all in the name of food safety?
Recently someone asked why I thought that the current food safety legislation would jeopardize organic farming. This is why! People who have no idea what it is to farm, and are in collusion with large corporate food producers, buyers, and sellers, draft legislation that is intolerable to the environment and our health, all in the name of food safety, in order to promote corporate profit.
Not one instance in “16 years of handling nearly every major food-borne illness outbreak in America, has Seattle trial lawyer Bill Marler had a case where it’s been linked to a farmers’ market” (Marler, B.). Yet, farmer’s markets and local organic food growers who sell at these markets are included in this legislation, and factory farming scorched earth methods are forced on them.
The Scorched Earth Policy
It is impossible to sanitize the earth. When slash and burn methods are used to supposedly control pathogens in our food supply, nature’s natural balance is destroyed, and with it our health. “Sanitizing American agriculture, aside from being impossible, is foolhardy,” said UC Berkeley food guru Michael Pollan. (Lochhead, C.)
Invisible to a public that sees only the headlines of the latest food-safety scare – spinach, peppers and now cookie dough – ponds are being poisoned and bulldozed. Vegetation harboring pollinators and filtering storm runoff is being cleared. Fences and poison baits line wildlife corridors. Birds, frogs, mice and deer – and anything that shelters them – are caught in a raging battle in the Salinas Valley against E. coli O157:H7, a lethal, food-borne bacteria. (Lochhead, C.)
In fact, in the fierce battle to sanitize the earth, one thing has been overlooked:
Some science suggests that removing vegetation near field crops could make food less safe. Vegetation and wetlands are a landscape’s lungs and kidneys, filtering out not just fertilizers, sediments and pesticides, but also pathogens. UC Davis scientists found that vegetation buffers can remove as much as 98 percent of E. coli from surface water. UC Davis advisers warn that some rodents prefer cleared areas. (Lochhead, C.)
Food Safety Fraud Culprits
So who is behind this massive attack on our food supply? You guessed it – giant food retailers, agri-business, and anyone with a bankroll larger than the state of Texas. It seems that paying “more than $100 million in court settlements and verdicts in spinach and lettuce lawsuits” (Lochhead, C.) as well as realizing a loss in sales is galvanizing these corporate giants to lead the charge in instituting a “quasi-governmental program of new protocols for growing greens safely, called the “leafy greens marketing agreement.””
A proposal was submitted last month in Washington to take these rules nationwide.” (Lochhead, C.) And just what is this proposal? HR 2749 Food Safety Enhancement Act.
A food safety bill sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, passed this month in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It would give new powers to the Food and Drug Administration to regulate all farms and produce in an attempt to fix the problem. The bill would require consideration of farm diversity and environmental rules, but would leave much to the FDA. (Lochhead, C.)
The requirements of this bill would put small farmers out of business entirely, but this is not the only threat to the little guy.
Large produce buyers have compiled secret “super metrics” that go much further. Farmers must follow them if they expect to sell their crops. These can include vast bare-dirt buffers, elimination of wildlife, and strict rules on water sources. To enforce these rules, retail buyers have sent forth armies of food-safety auditors, many of them trained in indoor processing plants, to inspect fields. (Lochhead, C.)
Most of these inspectors have little to no experience other than inside four walls. Take for example Ken Kimes, who owns New Natives Farms in Santa Cruz County. He was told that “no children younger than five can be allowed on his farm for fear of diapers” (Lochhead, C.)
Reaping the Consequences
It is this type of micro-management that our entire nation can look forward to if HR 2749 passes. These are rules no-one can comply with other than large factory operations. Not only do they conflict with common sense, but with organic and environmental standards as well. They are causing what they propose to eliminate, and that is, a dangerous, contaminated food supply controlled by no one but the biggest corporations.
And what can we expect to reap from this harvest? Higher prices due to increased costs to implement the measures and ship the food, nothing but factory-produced food that has travelled for miles to get on the shelf, increased pesticide use, the elimination of organic standards and the family farm, and the rape and desecration of nature itself.
The consequences of California’s draconian measures which are scheduled to go nationwide with the implementation of HR 2749 are already resulting in irreparable harm.
…trees have been bulldozed along the riparian corridors of the Salinas Valley, while poison-filled tubes targeting rodents dot lettuce fields. Dying rodents have led to deaths of owls and hawks that naturally control rodents. (Lochhead, C.)
The Fear Factor
Why is the public going along with this?
“It’s all based on panic and fear, and the science is not there,” said Dr. Andy Gordus, an environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Game.
Preliminary results released in April from a two-year study by the state wildlife agency, UC Davis and the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that less than one-half of 1 percent of 866 wild animals tested positive for E. coli O157:H7 in Central California.
Frogs are unrelated to E. coli, but their remains in bags of mechanically harvested greens are unsightly, Gordus said, so “the industry has been using food safety as a premise to eliminate frogs.”
Farmers are told that ponds used to recycle irrigation water are unsafe. So they bulldoze the ponds and pump more groundwater, opening more of the aquifer to saltwater intrusion, said Jill Wilson, an environmental scientist at the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board in San Luis Obispo.
Wilson said demands for 450-foot dirt buffers remove the agency’s chief means of preventing pollution from entering streams and rivers. Jovita Pajarillo, associate director of the water division in the San Francisco office of the Environmental Protection Agency, said removal of vegetative buffers threatens Arroyo Seco, one of the last remaining stretches of habitat for steelhead trout. (Lochhead, C.)
The Real Problem
The problem does not lie squarely in the lap of the farmer, where this legislation places it. It lies in the processing that happens after the produce leaves the farm. This legislation pronounces a death sentence on all small farmers, organic growers, and our nation’s very health as well, yet fails to address the real problem. “Industry rules won’t stop lawsuits or eliminate the risk of processed greens cut in fields, mingled in large baths, put in bags that must be chilled from packing plant to kitchen, and shipped thousands of miles away” (Marler, B).
Mass-production is the culprit, not my neighbor down the road who grows strawberries and sells them at the local farmer’s market. Yet the cause of the problem – mass-produced, industrialized food production methods are supported, while the innocent victims – family farmers, organic producers, and neighbors selling fruit at the local farmer’s market – are punished and quite literally put out of business.
©2009 Barbara H. Peterson
Source:
Lochhead, C. (2009). Crops, ponds destroyed in quest for food safety. SF Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/07/13/MN0218DVJ8.DTL
“I want to live my life in such a way that when I wake up in the morning and my feet hit the floor, satan shudders and says, oh shit, she’s awake!” (Maxine)
Localize yourself!
Barbara H. Peterson
http://survivingthemiddleclasscrash.wordpress.com
Read more great, Fight Back Friday posts here, http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-fridays-july-24th
Earth Democracy Author, Vandana Shiva, Speaks at WMU
I got to hear and meet Vandana Shiva last March. She’s an amazing women and is doing a lot to help the farmers in India get away from GMO’s. Here’s a recent interview with her.
Activist Vandana Shiva Recently Spoke at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo
Indian activist and author Vandana Shiva spoke at Western Michigan University last Thursday on the theme of sustainability, the topic of one of her most recent books,Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace.
Shiva began her talk by saying that we live in extremely important times, because the paradigm of fossil fuels consumption is killing us. She also used a comment from the founder of the Indian Satyagraha movement, Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi, when writing about the Western World, said that it “only promotes consumerism and comfort.” But, this model, according to Gandhi, is one that is self-destructive.
Corporate Globalization is a Dictatorship
Shiva then went on to talk about corporate globalization as a form of dictatorship. Corporate globalization uses force to achieve its goals as well as legal and institutional constructs such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). One example the author gave was how the global grain giant Cargill took control of the agricultural policies under the GATT/WTO. Shiva said they wrote the agreement and essentially represented the US at the international level to push through an agricultural policy that would allow them control of much of the world’s grain market.
Another way that Cargill has negatively impacted local agriculture is their dumping of soy oil on the market in India several years ago. Shiva said they were able to do this with huge subsidies, also part of the WTO agreements, which undercut the local market. People could not compete with the price of the soy oil, which was not nearly as good for human consumption as the dozens of other oils that Indians used. In response, women organized a Satyagraha campaign and made their own oil in defiance of the law.
Intellectual Property Rights and Seed Theft
The other main issue that Shiva addressed was the destructive consequences of intellectual property rights. Intellectual property rights were essentially an expansion of traditional property rights that included seeds, humans, and any other form of life. India had a non-patent framework for products built into their constitution, but that changed with the WTO. What this has meant is that Monsanto controlls 95% of the global seed store. Seeds–which are the ultimate regeneration resource–have now been privatized.
This control of the global seed stock is being manifested in three ways. First, corporations are using genetic modification that necessitates the use of more pesticides, most of which are manufactured by the same corporations. Second, the control of global seed stock means that these corporations can control the price of seeds. So for example, last year Monsanto raised corn seed costs from $200 a bag to $300, which meant that they profited even more off world hunger. The third way they control seed stock was to legally insert into the WTO agreements the inability of farmers to save their own seeds, thus making them dependent on companies like Monsanto to buy their seeds.
One crop where this seed control has been devastating for Indian farmers is with cotton. The GMO cotton seeds that Indian farmers are now forced to buy also require large amounts of pesticides and farmer just end up going into debt. This crisis has resulted in a great deal of resistance, but it has also meant that many Indian farmers have taken their own lives. Shiva said that over 200,000 farmers have committed suicide as a protest of the seed control. One irony with this is that the highest areas of suicide are the same area of Indian where Gandhi’s campaign of homespun cotton began, a campaign that complimented a national boycott of British made clothes from cotton.
Climate Chaos or Earth Democracy
Shiva also addressed the issue of Climate Change, which she said is an inaccurate way of naming the problem. We should call it climate chaos, because with Global Warming, weather patterns have become unpredictable and destabilizing. This, the author/activist said was due to our addiction to fossil fuels.
“We are not phasing out fossil fuels, because they are now used in agribusiness. The toxic nature of fossil fuels agribusiness is killing the soil. 40% of greenhouse gases are produced because of the way we grow and distribute food.”
Shiva believes that the only way to move away from this addiction to fossil fuels, as it relates to agriculture, is a shift to localism, “The local level is where the change must happen, with food production and energy creation. Local food systems are very important and are even an antidote for wars,” Shiva said. “Why did the US go to war in Iraq? Oil. The same is true for Afghanistan and other parts of the world.” She then said that a shift to bio-fuels is not a sustainable solution either. “If all of the corn that is grow in the US right now is used for bio-fuel it would only provide 7% of the fuel needs. So, if the appetite of resource consumption continues then wars are inevitable.”
The author/activist said that the only viable transition away from this corporate structure is what she calls earth democracy:
“The current economic system is based on theft. We have to restore our economy. I started the seed saving group Navdanya as a way of defending life. Life is to be shared, not bought and sold. The earthworm does not eat up the soil that it lives in, it enriches it. We need to catch up to these other species. We need to look to them as teachers, these species, the soil, because that is where life gets renewed. The soil is an alternative to the collapsing economy, to the fossil fuel destruction, and it is an alternative to wars.”
Shiva concluded by saying that earth democracy is different than electoral democracy because in electoral democracy you expect someone else to do it for you, but with earth democracy we must make the changes ourselves.
Posted by Jeff Smith http://www.mediamouse.org/news/2009/03/vandana-shiva-earth-democracy-wmu.php
Read more great, Fight Back Friday posts here,http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-fridays-july-17th
Interview with Joel Salatin
Joel Salatin is a hero to those of us want to eat real food, raised by real farmers. Here’s a great interview Joel gave recently.
Sustainable Farmer Joel Salatin Goes Beyond Organics
By Jedd Ferris
Polyface Farm’s Joel Salatin explains how his heritage-based practices have restored the natural cycle of his land in the Shenandoah Valley.
On a modest, idyllic 550 acres in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm has given the modern food industry a lesson in agrarian integrity. On his pasture-based, beyond organic, local-market farm, Salatin raises animals with ethically and ecologically sound methods that mimic natural movement patterns and preserve the landscape.
The self-declared “Christian-Libertarian-Environmentalist-Capitalist-Lunatic” has entered the national spotlight as a main subject in Michael Pollan’s bestseller, The Ominivore’s Dilemma and the upcoming film Food, Inc. The author of six of his own books, Salatin is not shy about his beliefs. He bluntly speaks out about the disgraces he sees in the current industrial food system, and lately he spends about one-third of his time giving lectures.
The Polyface Farm land was purchased by Salatin’s parents in 1961, and today the farm remains a small family-based operation, anchored by Salatin’s son Daniel and a meager staff of fewer than two dozen, which includes interns and apprentices.
At his farm, Salatin offers complete transparency. He invites his customers to visit the farm and see how the animals live. Despite a great increase in demand for Polyface’s sustainably produced meats, shipping farm-fresh meats is not an option, as it goes against Salatin’s principle of recreating a local food chain. He invited BRO to the farm in late spring.
BRO: What should people know about the meat they get at Polyface?
JS: Our cows are moved every day to a fresh paddock, so we’re mimicking the patterns of herbivores in nature. They’re moving away from yesterday’s manure. We take the natural, moving, mobbing, mowing pattern as a template. Fertile soils of the world have been built with herbivores. This grazing allows grass to grow through its cycle. If everyone practiced this pattern, we’d sequester all of the carbon that’s been emitted in the industrial age in fewer than 10 years.
Good food should be aesthetically pleasing from field to fork. We’re standing here among thousands of chickens with no odor. A good food production model doesn’t force a huge landscape change. It’s gentle on the land. It actually nests into its ecological umbilical cord. We only touch each square foot of land once a year with these birds. We move them every morning, so they get fresh salad every day, away from yesterday’s excrement. This is to eliminate pathogens that affect crowded chickens. We also don’t want to exceed the carrying capacity of the soil.
BRO: What’s the difference between this and free range?
JS: The pastured poultry is what we’re most famous for. We don’t call it free range. We call it pasture. Most free range chickens are on a dirt pile. That’s where we differ from operations that don’t have a portable infrastructure to give them fresh ground every day.
BRO: Can you explain what you mean by “beyond organic” in describing Polyface?
JS: Organic has become an extremely loose term that people don’t really understand. Now it’s been codified by the government and prostituted, so industrial food can enter the marketplace under the guise of organic. We’re beyond organic in that we put the animals on fresh grass and move them around all the time. We process at the farm with neighborhood labor.
BRO: What are your thoughts on vegetarianism and benefits to land use?
JS: Animals are one of the most healing things possible on the landscape, if they’re managed and raised properly, especially herbivores. The main reason for vegetarianism is an anti-vote against inhumane industrial agriculture. That is certainly valid, but I think it would be a lot healthier to turn that into a positive vote and purchase from grass-based farm outfits. The data that supports a conclusion that eating beef is a leading cause of global warming is based on grain-based industrial feed lot production. As soon as you go to a paradigm of a perennial, non-tillage, self-fertilized system, all that negative data goes out the window.
Beyond that, vegetarianism is actually totally foreign to the three-trillion member community inside of us. On this planet, things are being eaten all over the place, whether it’s the preying mantis eating an insect or a lion eating a wildebeest. From any way you want to look at it, there’s no ecological reason for vegetarianism.
BRO: What is your vision for the future of farming in this bioregion?
JS: I envision entrepreneurial local food collaboration, where we actually consume what’s grown here. Right now in the developed world, only five percent of the food consumed is produced locally. Food should be grown and eaten in its own region. People need to find their own kitchens and begin eating more seasonally.
BRO: What’s your biggest frustration in running this type of farm?
JS: Government regulations. The market is there, but the only reason we don’t have a more viable local food system is because of malicious, capricious regulations that put undue burdens on small producers and give big producers a free pass. I’m not just talking about the USDA. The problem also includes zoning regulations that don’t let somebody, for example, sell a quiche they made in their house because they’re in a zoned residential area. It’s the ultimate compartmentalized society. Throughout history the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker have been embedded in the village, not confined to their living quarters, so they have to drive somewhere to get to work.
You can’t buy a glass of raw milk legally in Virginia, even though it’s legal in 22 other states, and no one is getting sick. Our ability to make our own food choices is being infringed upon by people who tell us it’s safer to feed our kids Twinkies and Mountain Dew than raw milk from a neighbor.
BRO: What makes these battles worth it to farm this way?
JS: I want to leave a better world for my children and grandchildren. If things keep going the way they’re going, the only choice my grandchildren will have is Archer Daniels Midland eradiated, amalgamated, red dye 29, fecal junk.
BRO: Has your outlook on farming become more positive with public awareness?
JS: I am positive about what you and I can do as individuals, but I’m not positive about the agenda of the industrial food system to demonize and marginalize the type of food I want to produce. There’s a bill running through Congress right now that would allow the USDA to come onto any farm and determine if it is using scientific practices in the name of food safety. Scientific practices means industrial feed lots. Scientific means eggs come from nine birds cooped in a 19 x 22-inch cage with eight other cages stacked high in a confinement factory house. What I do is considered non-scientific. In the food system, we are at Wounded Knee. The industrial food system is not going to be happy until those of us who adhere to heritage-based principles are exterminated or put onto the reservation.
BRO: So we need a food revolution?
JS: I say we need a Food Emancipation Proclamation that would give us, as eaters, autonomy over the food that we eat. The only reason the founders of the Constitution didn’t give us that right is because they couldn’t have envisioned the day that selling a quiche to a neighbor would be considered illegal. What good is it to have the freedom to assemble, own firearms, or pray, if we don’t have the freedom to obtain the food that gives us the energy to shoot, pray, and preach?
BRO: Are we shedding the perception that local food is elitist, due to the higher price?
JS: I don’t know if we’ve turned the corner on that yet. People need to know that much of the cost of local artisan food has nothing to do with inefficient delivery or production. It has to do with the onerous government regulations that are non-scalable. A normal business that is our size should be paying $2,000 for worker’s comp, but we have to pay $10,000 because we don’t fit into a specific category. A lot of the problem is strictly regulatory requirements, as opposed to inherent inefficiency of small-scale production.
BRO: How does the work you do relate to your faith?
JS: I believe we don’t own the earth. We’re just pilgrims going through it. I do what I do as a steward of creation. God put us here to nurture his creation, not pillage, rape, and extract everything in the short term. In spiritual terms, I am in the business of trying to build forgiveness into nature. All of our farming techniques nest into the landscape as opposed to dominating the landscape.
From, http://www.blueridgeoutdoors.com/index.php/sustainable-farmer-joel-salatin-goes-beyond-organics/
Joel Salatin’s website, http://www.polyfacefarms.com
Read more great Real Food Wednesday posts here, http://www.cheeseslave.com/2009/07/15/real-food-wednesday-july-15-2009
Why Eat Local & Organic
It’s turned into list week, this week. Found this great list about why we should eat local and organic.
Reasons to Support Local Food:
1. Produce Ripens Longer – Because of the relative ease of bringing produce to market, fruits and vegetables can be allowed to ripen until the last possible minute, giving you extremely juicy and tender fruit and veggies ready to eat.
2. Produce is Very Fresh and Nutritious – When ripe produce is picked it naturally starts to lose taste and nutritional value. Farmers market produce is usually picked the same day or the day before. The fresher the produce, the tastier and more nutritious it is!
3. Better for the Environment – Local food travels less distance from farm to mouth, meaning fewer carbon emissions from transportation.
4. Diversity of Produce Variety and Animal Breed – Farmers markets bring many different varieties of produce and livestock to consumers, many specifically adapted to the local environment. Different varieties bring diverse kinds of tastes, textures, and color to the table.
5. Appreciate Seasonal Food – Eating seasonally means eating foods when they are tastiest and least expensive. Waiting to eat that first tomato or melon of the summer is one of the most enjoyable parts of the season!
6. Eat More Safely – Direct contact with farmers means getting to know how your food is grown and where it comes from. Knowing exactly where your spinach comes from means not having to worry about outbreaks of E. coli in California-grown spinach.
7. Preserve Farmland – The support of small farmers who go to market translates to the preservation of local open spaces like farms and pastures.
8. Support the Local Economy – Money spent locally generates more income for the local economy. Money spent locally stays local and encourages local economic growth.
9. Establish Positive Relationships – Interact with neighbors at a farmers market. Listen to good music and make friends. Studies cite good relationships are one of the biggest indicators of happiness. Farmers markets create a meaningful place in which to live and work.
Reasons to Eat Organic Foods:
1. Nutrition – Studies show that organic produce contains more nutrients than non-organic produce.
2. Healthy Environment – Organic farming is usually based on sustainable methods of production that support biodiversity within the soil and the farm. Organic production uses less energy than conventional production and does not pollute water and air sources.
3. Improved Soil and Prevent Erosion – Millions of organisms live in the soil. Using compost, crop rotation, and other methods, organic farmers prevent erosion and maintain and improve the complexity of soil while growing food. A healthy soil is essential for healthy plants, increasing their resistance to pests and disease and giving high yields. Studies also show that using organic methods increases long-term production as well as show that soil on organic farms absorbs more CO2 than on non-organic farms.
4. No Pesticides – Using smart sustainable growing methods, the need for pesticides and herbicides is eliminated. This in turn means no pesticide residue on produce and a healthier biodiverse ecosystem.
5. No Antibiotics – Animals kept with organic standards have no antibiotics in their meat, eggs, or milk.
6. Good Livestock Conditions – Organic standards ensure the good treatment of animals. They eat no animal byproducts. Access to fresh air, water, sun, pastures and organic feed enable the healthy growth of livestock. Healthy animals mean safe and excellent quality meat, eggs, milk and cheese.
7. Clear Costs of Production – Organic food has no hidden costs – organic means no federal subsidies, no environmental damage and cleanup, no hazardous waste disposal, no illnesses from chemicals and pollution, and less medical care due to healthier eating.
8. No GMOs – Organic certifiers prohibit genetically modified organisms, which have not been extensively researched in respect to possible effects on human health. GMOs may also endanger a diverse seed supply, local farming, and biodiversity.
Reposted from the original site, http://bethesdagreen.org/bgreen/GoingGreen/SustainableFoodAgriculture/WhyEatLocalOrganic/tabid/248/Default.aspx
Read more great, Fight Back Friday posts here, http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-fridays-july-10th
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle Review
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is the story of author Barbara Kingsolver and her family and their quest to eat locally and in season for one year.
She packed up with her husband and two daughters and moved from Arizona to their farm in VA where they’d been spending their summer for many years. This time they were planning on staying and spending a year eating what they could find locally and grow for themselves.
The book reminded me of how much we take for granted with our mass produced food. Winter tomatoes are not a local food – and you can tell by the taste! Having to wait for the fruits and vegetables of summer was both an adventure and a challenge to the author and her family, and it’s one she shares with us. The book is full of funny and touching stories of their trials along the way. Daughter Lily’s plans, and how they changed, about going into the egg business, the first tomatoes and cherries of the season, the abundance of tomatoes and what to do with them.
There are also mouthwatering recipes throughout the book, many of which have already been added to my own. This book is chock full of information about farming, food and cooking too.
I loved this quote, as it really does seem to relate to what’s going on with our own food supply these days, “When centralization collapses on itself, as it inevitably does, back we go to the family farm. The Roman Empire grew fat on the fruits of huge, corporate, slave-driven agriculture operations, tot eh near exclusion of any small farms by the end of the era. But when Rome crashed and burned, its urbanized citizenry scurried out to every nook and cranny of Italy’s mountains and valleys, returning once again to the work of feeding themselves and their families”
I first listened to this on audio-book, read by the authors and I really enjoyed their reading. As wonderful a writer as Barbara is, she is that great of a reader too. As is her husband Steven and daughter Camille.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is a terrific book for anyone interested in real food, cooking, gardening and stories of home. A wonderful book, highly recommended in any format.
You can read more great posts about real food, on Fight Back Friday here,
http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-fridays-july-3rd
Click picture to buy the book.
An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton from Another Wellesley College Alumna
By LINN COHEN-COLE
Dear Hillary,
By polling logic, I should be your supporter — Democrat, woman, white, liberal. But this past summer I saw a News Hour show on farmers committing suicide in Maharastra, India, which affected me deeply. I started learning what was happening to farmers and to food and how the Clintons are connected.
The News Hour piece said Monsanto, a US agricultural corporation, hired Bollywood actors to sell illiterate farmers Bt (genetically engineered) cotton seeds, promising they’d get rich from big yields. The expensive seeds needed expensive fertilizer and pesticides (Monsanto’s) and irrigation. There is no irrigation there. Crops failed. Farmers had immense debt and couldn’t collect seeds to try again because Monsanto seeds are “patented” as “intellectual property”).
“Genetic Engineering is often justified as a human technology, one that feeds more people with better food. Nothing could be further from the truth. With very few exceptions, the whole point of genetic engineering is to increase sales of chemicals and bio-engineered products to dependent farmers.”
David Ehrenfield: Professor of Biology, Rutgers University.
Monsanto has a $10 million budget and 75 person staff to prosecute farmers.
Since the late 1990s (as industrial agriculture took hold in India),166,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide and 8 million have left the land (P. Sainath, The Hindu). Farmers in Europe, Asia, Africa, Indonesia, South America, Central America and here, have all protested Monsanto and genetic engineering.
What does this have to do with you?
Your Orwellian-named “Rural Americans for Hillary” were Monsanto’s lobbyists. My greater concern, though, is you former-employer, Rose Law Firm, representing Monsanto, world’s largest GE (GE – genetic engineering) corporation; Tyson, world’s largest meat producer; Walmart, the world’s largest retailer. Rose is home to Industrial FOOD.
Rose’s cozy connections: Jon Jacoby, senior at the Stephens Group – one of the largest shareholders of Tyson, Walmart, DP&L – is C.O.B. of DP&L, arranged the Wal-Mart deal. Jackson Stephens’ Stephens Group staked Walton, financed Tyson. Monsanto bought DP&L. Walmart’s board invited you on, Tyson executive helped you do $100,000 trade just before Bill’ governorship, Jackson Stephens backed Bill for Governor, then President (donating $100,000).
Monsanto made Agent Orange, PCBs, nuclear weapons components, pesticides, and with that diverse background in death, are now “doing” food.
Bill in office:
USDA immediately significantly weakened chicken waste/contamination standards, easing Tyson’s poultry-factory expansion.
1. Monsanto people were put in charge of food, …
2. FDA okayed Monsanto’s rBGH (bovine growth hormone), first GE-product ever approved.
3. Despite bovine illness/death, FDA didn’t recall or warn.
4. When dairymen labeled milk “rBGH-free,” USDA threatened confiscation.
5. Organic food was the last way around unknown danger. FDA tried to close that escape with new “organic” standards, to include: genetic engineering of plants/animals, food irradiation , sewage sludge fertilizer.
USDA backed down from public response 20 times greater than to anything before American food:
Oils: Indian sheep died eating from Bt cotton fields. Our children eat Bt cottonseed oil in peanut butter, cookies.
Grains: 49 per cent of corn acreage planted in Bt corn in 2007. A French study indicates it causes kidney and liver toxicity. . Monsanto controls US’s two main crops, soy (90% GMO, 90% of traits “belong” to Monsanto) and corn, the largest crop (60% GMO, nearly 100% Monsanto “owned” traits).
Meat: Steroids bulk athletes, Monsanto steroids fatten animals, our fattening children eat steroid-laced meats. FDA allowed “known TSE-positive (Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy Mad Cow Disease) material to be used in pet food, pig, chicken and fish feed.” Monsanto’s GE-hormone increases risk sick cows are entering US food chain
Poultry: USDA weakened waste/contamination standards. Waste from transnational poultry industry is now implicated as the source of bird flu. The poultry industry is using the crisis to push out small farmers.
Milk: Scientific studies indicate Monsanto’s rBGH increases risks of breast cancer by up to seven-fold, increases colon, prostate cancers risks. Canada, 29 European nations, Norway, Switzerland, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa ban U.S. rBGH dairy products. Bill’s USFDA put no restrictions, warning labels, or any labels.
Control out of control.
Monsanto’s Terminator genes make plants sterile after one season, posing apocalyptic risk of breaking out into nature. GE breakouts have contaminated maize and weeds, already.
Monsanto, meat-packers, and the USDA are pushing NAIS (National Animal Identification System), a corporate database tracking small farmers’ livestock.
Monsanto pushing state laws taking control from farmers, communities, over GE planting.
Cattle living in filth, 12,000-year-old seed loss, poultry industry implicated in bird flu, Mad Cow disease, bee colony collapse, poisoned soil, depleted water, Superweed), lawsuits against farmers, loss of family farms throughout the world, … farmers committing suicide. Industrial agriculture.
Bees and farmers, dead canaries in that mine.
Your proposed “Department of Food Safety” centralizes control over food into whose hands? Tough talk on labeling “foreign” food but Bill degraded US food and prevented minimally sane labeling. You never objected.
Monsanto uses child labor in India.
You take Monsanto donations. Blacks, our poorest group, have to eat Monsanto’s steroid/hormone/antibiotic-filled GE food. You take Monsanto donations.
Who are you protecting? National Black Farmers Association, boycotting Monsanto? Babies drinking rBGH milk? Women fearing breast cancer? Despairing farmers? Suffering animals? Children fed kidney-and-liver-toxic Bt-corn?
Or Monsanto?
I am a person before I am a woman. Your gender is irrelevant. Given deadly threats to my grandchildren’s future by your corporate connections (Edwards was right), I don’t believe your talk of “caring” about Blacks/women/children/health/farmers/food.
I will vote for someone committed to small farmers – our ONLY real food safety. Your friends, though, are the heart of an international industrial agricultural nightmare.
Linn Cohen-Cole
Atlanta
Disclaimer. I am not a scientist. I have read for months on this subject, and am including only a tiny portion of the horrifying things I have learned. I am expressing my opinion as person and may be wrong. Perhaps things are swell out there and rBGH is fabulous and TSE-laced feed is great, and genetic engineering is the best thing since manna. But I am scared for my family and I have not only a right to say so but an obligation to do so. I am angry that Monsanto was allowed the influence it had and has done the things it definitely seems to have. I am disgusted by industrialization of every tender and beautiful part of our world and hope, for all our children’s sake, we are not too late to pull back.
Read more great, Fight Back Friday posts here: http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-fridays-june-19th
How to Avoid Genetically-Manipulated (GMO) Food Ingredients
In North America, all soy that is labeled “organic soy” is guaranteed to not be genetically-manipulated and not be treated with herbicides. Look for soy products and ingredients (e.g., tofu, tempeh, miso, soy sauce, soy milk, etc.) which are organic. All other soy ingredients are almost always genetically-manipulated and herbicide-treated. The same is true for canola, corn, dairy products and potatoes. Look for organic corn, potato and dairy ingredients at your local health food store. Check the ingredients labels carefully. It may be best to avoid canola altogether because it is rarely organic and is usually chemically-treated as detailed by world expert, Udo Erasmus. Outside of Europe and Asia it may not be possible at this time to avoid genetically-manipulated ingredients 100% of the time, but it is a good idea to avoid them when possible. The List of Companies Pledging to Remove GMO Ingredients is another very useful resource. http://www.soyinfo.com/haz/company.shtml
Health Hazards
There are a number of compelling reasons to completely avoid genetically-manipulated and herbicide-treated food ingredients from soy, corn, canola, dairy and potatoes. Children should be particularly careful to avoid such non-organic food ingredients.
1. Scientists attending the Open-ended Working Group on Biosafety of The UN-Convention on Biological Diversity (13-17 October, 1998) implored “all governments to use whatever methods available to them to bar from their markets, on grounds of injury to public health, Monsanto’s genetically manipulated (GM) [herbicide-resistant] Roundup-Ready (RR) soybean.” Non-organic soy ingredients are made with Roundup-Ready soybeans. Full Text of News Release and Scientists’ Statement. http://www.soyinfo.com/haz/warning.shtml
2. A recent experiment conducted by independent expert Dr. Alpad Pusztai in the United Kingdom has shown that genetically-manipulated foods can, when fed to animals in reasonable amounts, cause very gradual organ damage and immune system damage.
http://www.soyinfo.com/haz/puznews.shtml
The food used in the experiment was genetically-manipulated potatoes. Two sets of potatoes were grown in the same pot and greenhouse: 1) a genetically-manipulated variety altered to produce a non-toxic “GNA lectin”, and 2) a normal variety of potato. The normal potato was fed to animals with no adverse effects. The genetically-manipulated potato caused gradual organ damage and immune system damage.
A separate follow-up experiment conducted by Dr. S.W.B. Ewen, a Senior Pathologist at the University of Aberdeen, has confirmed that it was not the “GNA lectin,” but toxic or infectious by-products of the genetic manipulation process led to the immune system damage and organ damage in the animals fed genetically-manipulated potatoes. Because it was not the lectin in the potatoes, but the genetic manipulation process itself which led to toxicity, similar results might be seen in animals or humans fed genetically-manipulated soy, canola, and corn over a long period of time (i.e., years or decades).
There were initial reports of flaws in the research when government agencies audited the Dr. Pusztai’s preliminary notes. But since that time, over 20 top scientists around the world have peer-reviewed the Final Report and stated that the conclusions are justified. Parts of these experiments conducted by Dr. Pusztai and Dr. Ewen were recently published in the scientific journal, The Lancet. Most of The Lancet reviewers deemed it acceptable research for publication.
A couple of reviewers and other scientists and organizations receiving biotech money have been critical of the research. They have made the following statements (paraphrased below):
* “Raw potatoes should not have been fed to the animals in the experiment.” However, the animals eating non-genetically manipulated raw potatoes did fine. It was only the genetically manipulated food which caused health problems.
* “Too few animals were used.” Initial objections of The Lancet’s statistician reviewer were satisfied. Enough animals were used to show a statistically significant difference between the test group and control group.
* “There was an inadequate control group.” This is a non-specific criticism. The experiment wasn’t perfect. But the only difference between the two groups of animals was that one group ate genetically manipulated foods and the other didn’t.
* “One cannot take the results of this experiment and apply it to all genetically manipulated foods.” The only difference was the genetic manipulation of the potatoes. The same hazards may or may not be found in genetically manipulated soy, canola, etc. It is prudent to assume that all genetically manipulated ingredients have the same slow toxic effects until long-term, independent research can be conducted on each genetically manipulated crop.
On occasion, news reports of flaws in the research are mistakenly repeated, but almost independent scientists who have seen the Final Report of Dr. Pusztai’s research and are aware of the results of Dr. Ewen’s research agree that the conclusions are justified.
* News Report on Dr. Pusztai’s Research
* Interview with Dr. Pusztai
* Summary of the Peer-Review by Researchers
* Confirming Research by Dr. S.W.B. Ewen (Scroll Down to Text)
3. There are several differences between the normal breeding process and the artificial genetic manipulation process. One key difference is the use of highly-infectious viruses for artificial genetic manipulation as a promoter to switch on the introduced gene. One commonly-used virus is a highly-infectious form of the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus (CaMV). (The form of CaMV virus found in normal foods is not highly-infectious and cannot be absorbed by mammals.) The dangers were described in detail by renowned geneticist Dr. Mae-Wan Ho in a meeting on March 31st 1999 at the invitation of UK Environment Minister, Michael Meacher. Additional scientific information about the dangers presented by infectious promoter viruses such as CaMV are described by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Dr. Joe Cummins, Emeritus Professor of Genetics, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Western Ontario. Finally, a recent scientific report by Molecular Biologist, Angela Ryan provides further concerns regarding the use of the CaMV virus to create genetically-manipulated foods.
4. Another key difference between normal breeding and artificial genetic manipulation is that the genetic manipulation greatly increases the risk that the plant (e.g., soy) will develop toxic or allergy-causing compounds. Such unexpected changes have already been shown to occur in some genetically-manipulated crops.
The insertion of a new gene can sometimes alter the synthesis of chemicals in the plant. Such an alteration can lead to the change in existing chemical compounds in the plant (including a possible significant increase in existing levels of toxic compounds) or the development of new toxic or allergy-causing compounds. There would be no way to predict these effects in advance and it would be difficult to test for these effects without many years of careful, independent research on human test subjects. Gradual toxic effects could occur over weeks, months, years, or even decades and society would not be aware of the health damage until it was too late.
Genetic Manipulation industry representatives often point out that such unexpected hazards could be seen when breeding plants. This is true. However, the evidence demonstrates that there is a much greater likelihood of these unexpected toxic and allergic effects from genetically-manipulated plants/food ingredients. These potentially dangerous effects and their greater likelihood in genetically manipulated crops/food ingredients were discussed in some detail in by one of the world’s top experts on genetically manipulated crops:
Scientific principles for ecologically based risk assessment of transgenic organisms
P.J. Regal, Published in Molecular Ecology (1994) 3:5-13
(NOTE: Scroll down to the heading: “Ecologically adaptive pleiotropic effects?” approximately 3/5 of the way down the document)
For an excellent summary related to toxic and allergy-causing substances appearing in genetically-manipulated foods, please see the summary of “Assessing the Safety and Nutritional Quality of Genetically Engineered Foods” by Dr. John Fagan, Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. At the end of the summary, there are examples provided of genetically-manipulated crops/ingredients that unexpectedly produced toxic or unusual chemical compounds.
5. Another major risk from genetically-manipulated foods is the possibility that regular exposure to foreign DNA and RNA material inserted into these artificial foods could cause allergic reactions or autoimmune diseases. Recent scientific research has shown that fragments of DNA from genetically-manipulated food ingredients can be detected in the brains of animals fed these food ingredients. Dr. Sharyn Martin, Ph.D. discusses the evidence that DNA and RNA fragments can cause adverse immune system reactions including autoimmune disorders in Immunological Reactions to DNA and RNA.
Scientists in the United Kingdom measured a 50% increase in soy allergies in one year. They believe that the increase in soy allergies may be caused by the increase use of genetically-manipulated soy ingredients.
6. Finally, some genetically-manipulated crops are changed so that they produce their own high levels of pesticides. For example, genetically-manipulated “Bt” crops have been shown to emit very high levels of toxins. Plants genetically-manipulated to produce Bt toxin produce at least 1000 times more Bt toxin per acre than does a heavy application of Bt directly on the plants. This may lead to problems with long-term ingestion of such foods (such as non-organic corn and corn-based sweeteners). Other hazards related to crops manipulated to produce their own pesticides are discussed in more detail by Dr. Joseph Cummins, Professor of Genetics in “Plant-Pesticides in GE-food: A Potential Health Risk”. Even if the genetically-manipulated plant does not produce its own pesticides, it has been shown conclusively in scientific research that the herbicides used on some of these non-organic, genetically-manipulated plants (e.g., soy, canola, corn) are extremely toxic and can cause birth defects.
Additional authoritative information written by some of the world’s leading scientific experts for laypersons, physicians and scientists can be found at:
* Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Application of Science and Technology
* Is Genetically Engineered Food Safe?
* Genetic Engineering and Its Dangers: Essays Compiled by Dr. Ron Epstein
* Bio-Safety – Risks From Genetically Engineered Organisms (GEOs)
Environmental Hazards
The risks of irreversible damage to the environment have caused scientists around the world to demand a moratorium on the release of genetically-manipulated crops. This document focuses on health hazards. For a discussion of the environmental risks, please see the Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Application of Science and Technology web page.
Regulation of Genetically-Manipulated Foods
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not test nor require significant safety tests for genetically-manipulated foods. It has recently become known that the FDA’s own scientists have been warning FDA officials that they are ignoring the potential hazards of genetically-manipulated foods. Neither the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nor the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) require any significant tests for the health effects of these crops.
As has been widely-reported, FDA, EPA, and USDA officials are often rewarded with lucrative jobs at companies that they were regulating. A recent report by the Edmonds Institute lists several of hundreds of possible examples of the revolving door between the regulators and the companies they are supposed to regulate.
Many organizations have expressed concern that officials at these government agencies regularly ignore concerns of their own scientists and the general public and then go out of their way to please companies that they regulate. For example, the health department in the U.K. raised the allowable food residue levels of Roundup (Monsanto’s soybean and canola herbicide) by 200 times the existing level. This was done despite dangers expressed by the leading food safety experts. Similar increases in allowable pesticide and herbicide residues have been granted in the U.S. and other countries at the request of companies involved in genetically-manipulating foods.
Worldwide Condemnation of Genetically-Manipulated Crops/Foods
In many other countries, renowned scientists, medical trade organizations and government officials are detailing the known health hazards and potential health hazards from genetically- manipulated food ingredients. For example, in the last several months, a top UK Scientist has warned about potential hazards from genetically-manipulated foods, the British Medical Association (BMA) has called for a ban on genetically-manipulated foods and the French President and German Chancellor listed genetically-manipulated foods under “Global Threats” at a recent summit meeting. Top scientists in Asia and other parts of the world are speaking out as well. This has caused many manufacturers and grocery stores chains all around the world (outside of North America) to ban genetically-manipulated food ingredients. In order to keep up with news from around the world, please read through the following compilation of news articles:
http://www.ethicalinvesting.com/monsanto/news/
Corporate Public Relations (PR) Strategies
The multinational companies trying to sell genetically-manipulated foods (Monsanto, Dupont, Novartis, Agrevo [Hoechst and Schering]) have spared no expense in their public relations campaign. They have sometimes been successful in getting newspaper and magazine articles or television shows created to help promote genetically-manipulated crops. In addition, these multinational companies give huge sums of money to dietetic associations, farming and seed associations, grocery associations, and PR organizations (e.g., IFIC) in order to obtain help in propagating PR statements to the media and general public. Common PR statements include:
1. “Genetic Engineering is exactly like breeding and has been done for hundreds of years.”
As described above, artificial genetic manipulation of plants/food ingredients is different from breeding and has significant hazards associated with it including toxicity hazards seen in recent research.
2. “Careful tests by the FDA, EPA, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have proven that these ingredients are safe.” (Alternative: “We have the strictest regulatory process in the world”!)
These government agencies have not conducted, nor required any significant safety testing. Scientists around the world are calling for a moratorium on genetically-manipulated food ingredients and long-term, independent human studies lasting many years before these food are allowed for sale on the market. Because these government agencies are ignoring the hazards of genetically-manipulated foods, a very large alliance of scientists, consumer groups, environmental groups, and religious groups are suing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
3. “Europe and Asia are not making scientific evaluations of the issue, but relying on emotional arguments.”
Many of the top scientists around the world are speaking out about the hazards of genetically-manipulated crops/food ingredients. A small selection of these scientists have signed the following referenced document calling for a moratorium on genetically-manipulated crops. These are independent scientists who do not receive money from companies researching, creating or selling these genetically-manipulated crops and food ingredients. When U.S. officials make these sorts of public comments (quoted above), they are insulting much of the population of Europe and Asia and perhaps will strengthen the desire of European and Asian countries to avoid imports of food ingredients from the United States and Canada.
4. “Genetically-manipulated crops are safer because less pesticides and herbicides are used.”
In fact, recent research has shown that farmers growing genetically-manipulated crops use, on average, an equal amount or more pesticides than farmers growing non-genetically-manipulated, non-organic crops.
5. “Farmers are Reaping Rewards of Growing Genetically-Manipulated Crops.”
Farmers are being victimized as well. Evidence of problems they are experiencing include:
* Research showing reduced yields from genetically-manipulated crops.
* More money spent on herbicides and pesticides for genetically-manipulated crops.
* Potential of reduced farm land values.
* Possible lawsuits and intimidation from Monsanto.
* Increased costs in order to segregate their crops
* Risk of possible permanent damage to their soil by growing genetically-manipulated crops.
The scientific journal Nature (September 9, 1999) has reported that some farmers are considering class-action lawsuits because the seed and chemical companies (e.g., Monsanto) were misrepresenting their products as benign. The Washington Post reported (September 18, 1999):
“American farmers planted [gene-altered crops] in good faith, with the belief that the product is safe and that they would be rewarded for their efforts,” the American Corn Growers Association said in a statement last week. “Instead they find themselves misled by multinational seed and chemical companies and other commodity associations who only encouraged them to plant increased acres of these crops without any warning to farmers of the dangers associated with planting a crop that didn’t have consumer acceptance.”
Wheat farmers should prepare to avoid these genetically-manipulated seeds when they come on the market in the next year or two.
6. “Genetically-Manipulated crops have the potential to produce “functional foods” with extra nutrients and drugs which can save lives!”
The reality is that these nutrients or drugs can be taken separately when needed. The high cost of drugs is largely due to drug companies trying to recoup the millions of dollars of research money spent and is rarely due to high production costs. The costs of developing a drug-producing, genetically-manipulated plant is quite high. The costs of drugs will remain high whether they are genetically-manipulated into plants or not. Therefore, these drugs and nutrients can be produced without genetic manipulation as been the case in the past. It is also important to keep in mind that Alternative Medicine techniques are now beginning to replace the use of pharmaceuticals in some cases of disease treatment.
Originally, the corporate PR strategy was to say that genetically-manipulated crops would help “feed the world.” But when it was pointed out that the world grows 1-1/2 times the amount of food needed to feed the population, that the problem was food distribution, and that genetically-manipulated crops have reduced yields, the companies changed their PR to say that genetically-manipulated crops will grow drugs and save lives.
There is a very serious danger of pollen from these manipulated crops infecting normal crops of the same species or of different species leading to the unintentional ingestion of drugs by the general population. Pollen can travel a very long way from fields to infect other crops. In addition, scientists are concerned that accidental inhalation of pollen from these genetically-manipulated plants might lead to adverse health effects in some people.
What You Can Do (7 Steps)
1. Do what you can to remove genetically-manipulated food ingredients from your diet and your family’s diet. You can begin to do this by locating stores in your area which sell foods with organic soy, corn, dairy, and potato ingredients. The stores with the largest selection of such products include:
* Large natural food supermarket chains (e.g., Wild Oats Market, Whole Foods Market)
* Smaller health food stores
* Food Cooperative Markets ( directory 1, directory 2)
* Online Sources (e.g., Wild Oats Market, Whole Foods Market)
2. Print this web page out and share it with others!
3. Join others in creating web page links to the Soy Info Online! web page or this subpage.
4. Examine the organizations and web page resources below to determine which group(s) you want to work with so that we can keep food free of genetic manipulation.
5. Keep up-to-date on the latest news by subscribing to a discussion group listed in the Resource section below and/or by checking the Ethical Investing page for news updates on genetically-manipulated food issues.
6. Move your investments out of stocks, mutual funds, retirement funds, etc. which involve companies that produce genetically-manipulated crops and foods (Monsanto, Dupont, Novartis and Agrevo [Hoechst and Schering]). Europe’s largest bank recently warned large investors that ” GMOs [investments] are dead”. These companies’ stocks are falling quickly and you will lose money or certainly not make as much money as you can if you have stocks or mutual fund and retirement fund investments that involve these companies. Please check the list of mutual funds (e.g., Fidelity, Janus) that invest in Monsanto stock. Also, please join others by checking the Ethical Investing Web Page for ideas on moving your investments.
- 7.Please contact grocery stores to ask them to carry more organic foods including soy products, corn, potatoes and other produce. Contact food product manufacturers and ask them to replace any non-organic soy, corn, potato, dairy or canola ingredients they have with organic, non-genetically-manipulated ingredients. Sometimes the manufacturer will listen to consumer requests as is happening all over Europe. Sometimes they will claim that there are no non-genetically-manipulated sources for the ingredients they use. That is rarely the case as manufacturers all over Europe and Asia are removing genetically-manipulated ingredients from their products (Examples). Other times, they will respond with statements which originated with the genetic manipulation industry. However, it will only take a few major manufacturers in the U.S. to switch to non-genetically-manipulated ingredients and the rest will follow in order to avoid losing market share. So, please be persistent!
From: http://www.soyinfo.com/haz/gehaz.shtml
Read more great, Fight Back Friday posts here: http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-fridays-june-12th/
Would You Call 60,000 Cows Fenced Together on a Dirt Patch a Farm?
By Lisa M. Hamilton, Prairie Writers Circle.
Between 2002 and 2007, the United States lost 43,603 real farms — we can’t let agribusiness control our food supply.
When the Agriculture Department released its 2007 census recently, the news appeared surprisingly good: For the first time since World War II, the United States did not lose farms, it gained them — 75,810, to be exact, for a total of 2.2 million.
But on closer inspection, the numbers aren’t so hopeful. The discrepancy stems from this tricky question: What is a farm? The census has changed its definition nine times since 1850, most recently to “any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the census year.”
This loose definition is meant to err on the side of inclusion, but ultimately it just errs. Take, for example, the four chickens I keep in my back yard. I sometimes sell eggs to neighbors, and at the going rate I could make $500 a year. If I got four more hens, my suburban home could qualify as a farm.
Silly, right? But where do you place the lower limit — or the upper limit? The Cargill feedlot in Lockney, Texas, consists of 60,000 cattle kept in dirt yards and fattened on feed grown elsewhere. Is that a farm? While the census says yes, most Americans would say no.
So then, what is a farm? To answer that, we must first ask: Why do we care? Really, why is it good news when farms — and, more importantly, the farmers who run them — increase?
There are sentimental reasons, of course, but there is also a practical reason. Farmers are valuable because they bring human scale to our massive food system. Think of how many people, in the wake of each new salmonella scare, turn to the farmers market. We do so because we know that farmers bring oversight and ethics to food production, contributions that only individual humans can offer.
In the future, farmers’ importance will only grow. Their intimate, human-scale knowledge of the land is what will allow agriculture to adapt to climate change. And as the cheap energy that industrial agriculture depends on disappears, it is farmers, with their small-scale innovation and sheer manual labor, who will feed us. Why do we care about having more farmers? Because deep down we know they are essential to a functioning food system.
So I offer this new definition of a farmer: someone who grows crops in sufficient quantity to be a true commercial entity, yet is still close enough to the ground to bring human scale and values to the process. Not the backyard chicken enthusiast, nor the corporation behind the feedlot, but the individual human on the land, growing our food.
Revisit the census with this definition, and the good news vanishes. The USDA’s reported increases occurred exclusively in farms with yearly sales of less than $2,500 or more than $500,000 — that is, the backyard operations and the corporate-scale businesses. In every other category, the numbers dropped or, in one case, stayed the same. Between 2002 and 2007, the United States actually lost 43,603 real farms.
To stop this hemorrhaging, we must shift from blindly encouraging production to investing in a system that values farmers and propagates them. We need to help new farmers obtain markets, land and credit. And we must inspire nonfarmers to enter the profession. Imagine, for instance, a program that puts interns on farms — an AmeriCorps for agriculture. In this “AgriCorps,” participants would learn the skills of farming and experience the lifestyle; hosts would receive valuable labor to bolster their businesses.
Such a program would face an obvious objection: AmeriCorps offers volunteers to public service organizations, but most farms are private businesses. Why should the rest of us help support them?
But maybe we need to reconsider that line of thinking. By defining farms and farmers as purely economic entities, we condemn them to a system that inevitably eliminates them. What if instead we began to see farmers as the public servants they are, and enabled them to be the public servants we need: stewards of our soil and water, pillars of our rural communities, and guardians of our food. Perhaps by redefining what farms mean to us, we can help their numbers grow — this time, for real.
Lisa M. Hamilton is the author of the new book “Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in the Age of Agribusiness.” She wrote this comment for the Land Institute’s Prairie Writers Circle, Salina, Kan. Hamilton lives in California.Read more about her.
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