CLEANSING THE ANSWER TO BETTER HEALTH BUT ONLY PART OF THE ANSWER

Cleansing should be partnered with a diet of healthy whole foods. But where do we get our food? Do you know?

FOUR CONGLOMERATES PROVIDE AMERICA’S FOOD FROM FIELD TO PLATE

America is loosing it’s farms. Chicken, beef, hog, and dairy production is increasingly centered on large CAFOs (Contained Animal Feeding Operations).  Animals from these CAFOs are crammed into small spaces (hogs in some CAFOs literally cannot turn around. they stand all day in their own waste.)

The Bush administration approved mergers creating monopolies of dairy and animal producers. The result gives us only four companies, Cargill, ADM, Monsanto, and Dairy Farmers of America, that control food production from field to plate.

With this “bigger is better’ philosophy fewer than 2% of farms account for over 50% of all farm sales.   Conglomerates produce and market seed sold to all farmers.  The same conglomerates produce and market feed, bedding, and equipment for hog, chicken, and beef farmers. These same also own feed lot and packing houses that bring animals to the market.

MONOPOLITHIC OWNERSHIP OF FOOD SUPPLY DANGEROUS FOR AMERICA

Not only is this not cost effective for either farmer or consumer, a small number of producers is not safe for America. Our food supply is more vulnerable to disease, and climate disruptions such as floods, and drought.

The health of some Americans is being affected right now, since some mammoth factory farms spread toxic waste directly onto fields near homes and towns in the midwest. Southern Michigan is an example.  This waste can contain hormones, urine, feces, parasites, blood and body fluids, possible antibiotic resistant pathogens, and sometimes even chopped body parts. It’s spread over open fields where it seeps into ground water, runs off into streams, and attracts flies. 

Waste, spread directly onto frozen ground in winter, runs off into water sources.  (notice trees along a stream in background of the picture from www.nocafos.org.)

Waste in some cases is dried and srayed into the air near homes and towns. Dried waste particles settle on lawns, swing sets, picnic tables, pets, farm animals, and homes.  Here’s pivot spraying dried CAFO waste in south central Michigan, www.nocafos.org/.  Check the website for more information. Click the back arrow on your browser to return to this page.

ATTORNEY GENERAL TO MEET WITH FARMERS NEXT YEAR!

Last week, in a shocking development reported by National Public Radio, (listen: http://tinyurl.com/lpr2jl Click back arrow of browser to return to this page.)  the antitrust division of the Attorney General’s office met with a nonprofit group of farmers and academics, led by Mississippi rancher Fred Stokes, to talk about “gigantification”of American agriculture.

Beginning next year. 2010, the Attorney General’s office will hold town meetings with farmers across the country. These joint hearings between departments of Agriculture and Justice will uncover the extent of harm because of lack of antitrust enforcement of the former administration. These meetings are unprecedented and are a very encouraging sign.

We’ve talked before about factory farms on this Blog.  (see:  http://cleanse-for-better-health.com/blog/factory-farm-staph-infection/)

We need to be aware of what’s happening to our food.  Factory farms are not a “natural” development. They  are engineered for efficiency and profit.  They are cost-effective for the owner and producer. Factory systems keep their costs down.

Factory Farms do not exist to provide healthy food to the consumer. Their purpose does not include keeping family farm in business.  They are not an agency for diversity so they go directly against Nature. Nature hates a monoculture and will break a monoculture down given time.

Keep this in mind as you shop for groceries this week.

Factory Farms or Family Farms. 

You get to choose with your dollar.

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Cleansing is the answer to diets. Regular cleansing takes care of diets–throws them in the trash.  American, though, are still obsessed.

My Oprah magazine just came. The cover story for the September issue, is ”Finding the diet that fits your life. 

Americans have a love/hate relationship with food. We’re dieting, counting calories, watching our weight, continually on some diet or restricted food plan. And yet, a high percentage of us are not only overweight, but obese.

Why do we have so much trouble with food?

Why can’t we relax and enjoy something that’s such a big part of living? Other cultures don’t seem to have these American hangups.  Look at the French, for example, and you’ll see a lot of slender French people eating gobs of saturated fat washed down with wine. These are a people who have a relationship to food completely different from ours, according to Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food.

The French eat small portions, don’t come back for seconds, and they spend considerably more time eating than we do. Taken together, these habits contribute to a food culture in which the French consume fewer calories than we do, yet manage to enjoy them far more,” page 183.

• Drink a large glass of water first thing in the morning to hydrate your brain. Continue drinking water throughout the day.
• Follow with breakfast, containing high-quality protein along with carbohydrate and fat.
• Have a 100 calorie snack about 10:00 a.m. (raw nuts, celery, carrots, vegetables, nut butters, tuna, and crackers.)
• Drink water throughout the day.
• At Lunch include high quality protein with carbohydrate and fat. 
• It’s another snack at 3:00 p.m. Aim for 3 snacks and 3 balanced meals every day.
• Evening meal around 5:30, or 6:00.
• Snack at 8:00 if you head for bed around 10:00.

EAT MORE FOOD TO RELEASE MORE FAT

1. Three 100-calorie snacks a day. Eat more to get best results because you don’t want to go more than 3 hours without eating something with protein. If you restrict calories, don’t eat, your body will lower metabolism and drop into starvation mode.
2. Avoid processed food, anything with high fructose corn syrup, long chemical names. These products are not food. Much of what we see in our groceries is a chemical rearrangement of three ingredients: corn, soy, and wheat, not real food.  When Pollan says, “Eat food, not too much, mostly vegetables,” he’s not referring to processed food which is fake.
3. Don’t avoid good fats found in eggs from open-range chickens, avocados, coconut, healthy fish, olilve oil, and butter from grass-finished cows. America’s diet is devoid of Omega-3 fatty acids that are very important to all aspects of good health.
4. Take time to prepare food, eat slowly, and enjoy it with someone you love.

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We’ve lost the minerals in our food.

You’d have to eat 3 of today’s apples to get the amount of, say, iron, in just one apple during Grandma’s day in 1950.  It takes three of our apples to equal the nutrition in just one apple picked around 1950.  That’s about a third loss of food value in only 60 years.

PROFIT AND GREED ARE ROBBING US OF HEALTHY FOOD

The move to make money has pushed flavorful, nutrient-rich food out of the produce section.  Selective breeding gives fruits and vegetables longer shelf life, and toughens tomato skins so they look good longer and ship better.  This favors the middlemAn, not the customer or farmer.

Selectively breed for one or two traits and you automatically loose other traits–usually flavor and nutrition. The goal “profit over all” robs our bodies of vitamins and minerals we need for optimum health.

RIPENESS AND SWEETNESS LURE US WHEN NUTRITION IS HIGHEST

Deep color and oozing sweetness go together for very good reason. They attract us when vitamin and mireral content are highest. When fruit is picked while it’s still green it ships well, but there’s the nutritive value hasn’t had time to develop.

There’s “intelligence” in the symbiotic relationship between humans and plants. Stay with me here. Fruit, for example, is at its richness and sweetest when its nutritional value is highest. Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food, maintains that evolution has developed plants with raised sugar content as mineral and vitamin content peak. Sweetness temps us to eat when nutrition is highest it will ever be. When we pick fruit too early, as conventional agriculture does, that connection is severed. Plants and humans have evolved together over centuries. Higher profit gets in the way of that beautiful plan.

Nutritionally we’re fooled into thinking we’re feeding our bodies what they need to ward off disease. We can buy melons and asparagus in the dead of winter, but what value do they have for health? Little because when they’re picked early and shipped long distances food value is sacrificed.

GET NUTRITIOUS FRUIT AND VEGETABLES AT YOUR FARMERS MARKET

The only place you’ll see really ripe, nutrient-rich vegetables and fruits today is in your CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) box, a local Farmers’ Market, or your own garden.

Become educated about what has happened to our food in the last 50-60 years. What produce is available in your area? 

Cleansing is still important. Keep toxin awareness in the front of your mind and fill your grocery list with foods that are truly healthy and toxin-free as much as possible.

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FACTORY FARM BOAR HOG INFLICTS LIFE-THREATENING STREP INFECTION

Russ Kremer was stabbed in the knee cap by a boar’s tusk as he worked on his farm fifteen years ago. When pigs are packed into a closed area that’s not too unusual.

A life-threatening strep infection threw him into the hospital for intraveneous treatment with state-of-the-art drugs or he might not have survived. His story is important to us for several reasons.

Like other factory farms, he administered  a laundry list of pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics and hormones, to keep his pigs healthy and make them gain weight fast. This is common practice in feedlots in America today.

STREP INFECTION FROM MUTANT ANTIBIOTIC STRAIN DIFFICULT TO CONTROL

The strep bacteria that infected Russ was a mutant strain, difficult to control. Regular use of antibiotics in factory farms kills weak bacterial strains and, not only favors the strong ones, it actually creates stronger antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Animals kept in close confinement, as they are in industrial farms, must be given antibiotics to control disease. A list of bacteria dangerous to humans includes eColi, Salmonela, and Campylobacter, methicillin-resistant Staph, and 15787, a feedlot bacteria responsible for the death of humans.

This directly concerns me as a consumer because of the danger antibiotic-resistant bacterial pose. “New” diseases such as avian/swine/Spanish flu, and SAARS can be difficult to treat. Anitibiotics, hormones, and pharmaceutical drugs, are now part of our water supply. They are difficult to remove.

“FRESH,THE MOVIE:” FROM FACTORY TO FREE-RANGE

Here’s Russ’ story in the “trailer” of the new movie, “Fresh.”

I’ve seen the entire movie, and it’s great.  In fact, I love it so much I’ve played the DVD maybe 9 times.  It’s inspiring and educational at the same time.

Kremer, Joel Salatin, Michael Pollan, Will Allen and others talk about America’s food–where it comes from. That part of the movie isn’t a pretty picture, but all of us need to know, since it’s what we feed our famlies.

Then the movie shifts and showcases farmers, grocers–inspiring visionaries–who are changing the way food comes to us. People working in their local communities to make healthy food available locally to all people, not just those who can afford to buy organic.

HEALTHY FOOD IS A HUMAN RIGHT

It’s an encouraging movie that will raise your spirits.

Check their web page http://www.freshthemovie.com/screenings/fresh-screenings/ for showings in your area. I’m excited that we’re screening the movie here in Elko, Nevada, in September!

What experience do you have with factory farms or family farms?  Have you visited either?  Do you work in either? Please post your thoughts below. Let us all know if you get to see “Fresh,” the movie! 

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