A couple of posts ago I recommended David Kirby’s website and book, Animal Factory.
Factory Farms, CAFOs. Big topic today. The book link is here. Order and we can talk about animal farms versus factory farms!
All this talk about eggs laced with toxins makes some of us avoid an excellent whole food, eggs.
Eggs from a family farm are healthy food, whole food. What we need to avoid is eggs and chickens from factory farms, CAFOs where crowded, unsanitary conditions can breed dangerous bacteria.
Dr Mercola recommends eggs as healthy food. Buy eggs from someone you know, maybe someone in your neighborhood. His rather lengthy article is below. The article is a little long, but interesting, especially if you’re playing with the idea of having a few chickens in your back yard…
Janice
Recalled eggs, 380 million of them. Source farm was found according to New York Times and it’s Wright County Egg Farm near Clarion, Iowa, owned by the DeCoster family.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/us/27eggs.html?_r=2&src=twt&twt=nytimesdining
(Check my post yesterday. We talked about DeCoster farms.)
DeCoster farms does 2.3 million dozen eggs, a week….that makes you pause. Ever seen 2.3 million dozen in one place at one time?
Neither have I. But don’t dump them in MY kitchen any time soon.
Apparently DeCoster has been fined numerous times for environmental pollution and sexual harrassment.
Check out the New York Times article. It’s enlightening.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/us/27eggs.html?_r=2&src=twt&twt=nytimesdining
Know where your food comes from?
When I grew up in the 50s we knew. The back yard garden, the back pasture, the neighbor next door who had a few chickens.
Now, it’s not so easy.
AMERICA’S FOOD, CONTROLLED BY ONLY FOUR CORPORATIONS
Food is big business. Hogs, chickens, and beef production is controlled by only four (4) corporations. These four corporations control the animals, the buildings, the feed, the feedlots, and the distribution centers that supply meat to American grocers.
Controlled Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) control most of our egg supply, too. Unless you buy eggs from a local small farm!
I found a great website just yesterday.
Amy Goodman, “Democracy Now!” interviewed Kirby about his book, “Animal Factory.” (check the 8/25 blog post). Here’s his website. It’s a good one. http://animalfactorybook.com/
And, here’s a video from his website:
POLLUTION MACHINES=INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE
“These factory farms, known as “Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations,” or CAFOs, confine thousands of pigs, dairy and beef cattle, and poultry in small spaces, often under stressful conditions, and generate enormous volumes of fecal and biological waste as well as other toxins.”
DISEASE FACTORIES
Kirby: “Swine flu. MRSA. Unusual concentrations of cancer and other diseases. Massive fish kills from algal blooms and flesh-eating parasites. Recalls of meats, vegetables, and fruits because of deadly E-coli bacteria contamination, salmonella and 380 million eggs…
Recent public health crises raise urgent questions about how our animal-derived food is raised and brought to market.”
NOT SO EASY TO TELL WHAT’S REAL FOOD
It’s not not so easy today to tell what’s really food. But, there are still a few tell tale guidelines.
Michael Pollan (In “Defense of Food”) lists five.
Know where your food comes from?
It’s the responsibility of the consumer now. Read labels. What else do you do?
Food is big business today. Corporations aren’t concerned with your health; they’re money-making machines. Each of us must take responsibility.
So, what do you do? I’ll take new ideas, your thoughts about food sources. Let me know below
380 Million eggs recalled since last week.
Were they from a small family farm or CAFO?
What’s your guess?
Two Iowa farms, CAFOs, recalled more than half a billion potentially tainted eggs this month. Those two farms share close ties since they supply both the chickens and the feed and yet are owned by the same company.
DECOSTER FARMS CITED FOR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE
Both farms are linked to businessman Austin “Jack” DeCoster, cited for numerous health, safety and employment violations over the years. DeCoster owns Wright County Egg, the original farm that recalled 380 million eggs Aug. 13 after they were linked to more than 1,000 reported cases of salmonella poisoning.
FDA SEEKS FURTHER REGULATORY AUTHORITY
According to Sherri McGarry of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, “There are preventive measures that would have been in place that could have prevented this.” She and other officials declined to say what specific measures would have prevented this particular outbreak, citing an ongoing FDA investigation. The FDA recommends stronger regulatory powers be given to the agency.
CHEAP EGGS, FILTHY CONDITIONS
Michael Pollan, “Omnivore’s Dilemma,” would call these eggs, “battery cage eggs,” because the chickens are crammed into tiny cages, unable to walk or spread their wings.
They’re covered in feces, often forced to share cages with the bodies of dead neighbors. These unnatural conditions produce sick birds, which increases the likelihood of infected eggs.
DeCoster has been warned before of environmental violations. Hog effluent, from his hog farm, contaminated the chicken operation. Rats contaminated the feed, and carried contamination from one to the other.
Hog effluent, rats rummaging in chicken feed. It’s no surprise there’s salmonella.
Picture courtesy of “Farm Sanctuary”
FACTORY FARMS FIGHT NATURAL DESIGN
I wonder how the FDA proposes to inspect and regulate huge animal factories.
Why try to regulate “farms” that are, by design, breeding grounds for disease and bacteria? It seems to me this problem does not stem frm lack the lack of regulation as much as faulty design.
It’s the industry itself. How do you present factories that treat animals/birds inhumanely as sources of healthy food for our bodies?
Can we expect food from abused creatures to really nourish and bring health?
EGG INDUSTRY CONSOLIDATION MEANS FEWER FOOD SOURCES
The egg industry has consolidated over recent years, leaving a few very large businesses. Controlled Animal Feeding Operations, CAFOs, control most of the nation’s egg supply. That’s not a sustainable system.
Amy Goodman interviews, Aug 24, on “Democracy Now” author David Kirby, “Animal Factory,” about the dangerous consolidation of our food supply:
WHERE DOES OUR FOOD COME FROM?
WHERE DO I GET MY EGGS?
Thanks for asking!! Our family buys chickens and eggs from a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Program. The chickens are raised on a small family farm in Nevada. Even in the city you can find today folks who raise a few chickens and are willing to sell their eggs.
The chickens run free, are not cramped in small cages with no room to turn. They’re allowed to express their “chickenness,” as Joel Saladin would say.
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.
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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