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.

• Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
• Avoid food containing ingredients that are a: unfamiliar, b: unpronounceable, c: more than five in number, or that include d: high fructose corn syrup.
• Avoid food products that make health claims.
• Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.
• Get out of the supermarket whenever possible.

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

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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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AACK!!!

Toxins in the environment, in my food, in my shampoo. Mad Cow disease, e Coli, and Avian/swine/Spanish flu popping up in Africa and South America…

Panic time for my immune system. 

WHAT HAPPENS TO MY IMMUNE SYSTEM IF MY BODY IS OVERWHELMED WITH TOXINS?

If my body is overwhelmed with toxins, my immune system is compromised, and I’m more likely to get sick.  My body is naturally designed to capture and destroy bacteria and other invaders, but if it’s already fighting hords of poisons from food, environment, and personal care products how can it do its job of warding off disease? 

How often do you think about your liver?

Probably not very often. 

Yet it’s probably one of the most complicated organs in our body.  It works silently, below awareness, to break toxins into pieces that can be excreted through the skin, kidneys, and colon.

I drink a lot of water during the day.  Almost a quart in the morning as I take my morning herbal drink and shake and vitamins. Through the day my trusty water bottle goes with me to town and downstairs as I work on the computer.

Water is the most important thing you can do to support detoxification. I filter mine even though we have water with no chlorine at our house. I don’t feel good drinking chorine.  It makes water supply in the U.S. safe by killing bacteria, but I don’t want to deliberately put a poison into my body. So I filter.

John and I eat lots of vegetables and local free-range meat (lamb, beef, chicken) and eggs. Animals in the industrial agricultural system are routinely fed various antibiotics and hormones to prevent infection and increase weight gain.

We get those vegetables from a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm. That’s new for us this year. We love getting healthy produce every week. In the process we support a farmer who is small–not part of the military-industrial complex that is U.S. agriculture today.

40% OF AMERICA’S FOOD GROWN TODAY IS NOT INTENDED FOR PEOPLE

Next week I’ll send you the trailer for “Fresh,” the movie. It’s all about what’s happened in just the last 50 years or so to America’s food supply. We all need to be aware how vulnerable our food supply is today.  Our food supply is controlled by only 4 companies, and 40% of food grown in the U.S. is not grown for human consumption.  Many conventional farmers today, subsidized by our government, grow nothing on their farms that is intended for humans.

More in a couple of days. In the meantime, do you buy “organic” at the store? Why is it important to you? Why not?
 
 

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