Food Democracy

It’s Sunday, a day of rest, a day when I traditionally try to stay away from posting anything too depressing. It hasn’t been easy lately. When it comes to our government and our food supply there is a far greater stream of not-so-good news. It often makes me wonder just what God (or Mother Nature) must be thinking. But today I give thanks for people like Don Bustos.

Don lives and farms in northern New Mexico’s Espanola Valley. His land has been passed down from his Spanish ancestors who tilled the same soil centuries before. He went organic 15 years ago when he realized the traditional farming techniques he was using could harm his children’s health. But now, Bustos has found an even safer method — vegan organic farming without any animal fertilizers or byproducts. Read the rest of this entry »

The USDA’s monthly Livestock Slaughter report shows May was another record-setting month for meat production. U.S. commercial meat production totaled 4.22 billion pounds in May, up 4 percent from the 4.08 billion pounds produced in 2007.

Pork production totaled 1.82 billion pounds, up 3 percent from the previous year. Hog slaughter totaled 9.06 million head, up 3 percent from May 2007. The average live weight was down 1 pound from the previous year, at 268 pounds. Beef production, at 2.38 billion pounds, was 4 percent higher than last year. Cattle slaughter totaled 3.14 million head, up 3 percent from May 2007.

From January to May, commercial meat production was 21.0 billion pounds, up 7 percent from 2007. Accumulated pork production was up 11 percent, and beef production was up 4 percent.

Cows, pigs and chickens aren’t raised in pretty green meadows. They’re raised in crowded, unfavorable conditions and, especially in the case with dairy cows, are injected with growth hormones. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you drink milk? Do you give milk to your kids? Then you need to know about rBGH. Otherwise known as “crack for cows,” it has devastating health effects on consumers, including cancer.

Milk from rBGH-treated cows has much higher levels of IGF-1, a hormone considered to be a high risk factor for breast, prostate, colon, lung, and other cancers. IGF-1 levels in milk from treated cows with rBGH can be up to 10 times higher. Studies suggest that pre-menopausal women below 50 years old with high levels of IGF-1 are seven times more likely to develop breast cancer. Men are four times more likely to develop prostate cancer. IGF-1 is implicated in lung and colon cancer. Read the rest of this entry »

Two weeks ago Tyson Foods Inc. killed and buried the carcasses of 15,000 hens in northwest Arkansas that tested positive for exposure to a strain of the avian flu that is not harmful to humans, state officials announced.

The affected chickens had antibodies of a mild or low pathogenic strain of bird flu called H7N3.

It is the deadly high pathogenic H5N1 strain, which has never been found in the United States, that worries scientists because it has spread to and killed people around the world.

The deadly H5N1 strain has spread to humans overseas who have been in close contact with infected chickens. So far there have been 376 human cases worldwide including 238 deaths.

A major worry among health experts is the H5N1 strain will mutate into a form that can be transmitted from human to human, raising the threat of a global pandemic that could kill millions.

Jon Fitch, director of the state’s Livestock and Poultry Commission, said routine blood tests conducted on May 30 found the possible exposure. Further tests done by the state and the U.S. Department of Agriculture found the birds did not have active infections, but rather were exposed to a subtype of the disease.

“Even though the affected birds do not currently have the virus, the flock is being depopulated today as a precautionary measure and will not enter the human food chain. While the birds’ exposure to this strain of avian influenza poses no risk to human health, USDA’s policy is to eradicate all H5 and H7 subtypes,” the company, based in Springdale, Arkansas, said in a statement. Read the rest of this entry »

Police place South Korean flags on cargo containers that hold sand to form a barricade to block a protest march on a street leading to the U.S. embassy and the presidential Blue House in central Seoul June 10, 2008. The containers were welded together and on to the road. About one million people fearing infection of mad cow disease across the country demonstrated to demand full-scale renegotiation of a beef deal with the U.S. and the resignation of President Lee Myung-bak. Yesterday the entire cabinet offered to resign because of mounting public protests against the resumption of U.S. beef imports.

South Korea was the third-biggest buyer of U.S. beef before imposing a ban in December 2003 on concerns about the brain- wasting disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Scientists say BSE is spread in cattle by tainted animal feed. Eating contaminated meat from infected animals can cause a fatal human variant that has been blamed for the deaths of 151 people in the U.K., where it was first reported in the 1980s.

(Xinhua/Reuters Photo), www.chinaview.cn

Sustainable Table, the creator of the animated short film series, The Meatrix, is going on the road again, headed to this year’s Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. Founder/Director, Diane Hatz, and Moopheus, the larger than life, trench-coat-clad cow and superhero star of The Meatrix, will bring festival goers an urgent message—“Eat locally grown, sustainably raised foods to help save the environment.”  2008 is emerging as the year of ethical eating. Local food is becoming an important part of the consumer food market as consumers want to know more about their food — where it was grown, what ingredients it contains, how it was packaged, and the footprint its production left on the earth.

“By purchasing sustainable, local foods in-season, you eliminate the environmental damage caused by shipping foods thousands of miles, your food dollar goes directly to the farmer, and your family will be able to enjoy the health benefits of eating fresh, unprocessed fruits and vegetables. Buying seasonal produce also provides an exciting opportunity to try new foods and to experiment with seasonal recipes. And it simply tastes better!” said Diane Hatz, Founder/Director of Sustainable Table.

Read the rest of this entry »

Good editorial from the New York Times:

In the past month, two new reports have examined how farm animals are raised in this country. The report funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts calls the prevailing system “industrial farm animal production.” The report from the Union of Concerned Scientists prefers the term “confined animal feeding operations.”

No matter what you call it, it adds up to the same thing. Millions of animals are crowded together in inhumane conditions, causing significant environmental threats and unacceptable health risks for workers, their neighbors and all the rest of us.

The astonishing increase in the number and size of confined animal operations has been spawned largely by the very structure of American farm supports, which always has been skewed in a way that concentrates farming in fewer and fewer hands. As both of these reports make clear, the so-called efficiency of industrial animal production is an illusion, made possible by cheap grain, cheap water and prisonlike confinement systems.

In short, animal husbandry has been turned into animal abuse. Manure — traditionally a source of fertilizer — has been turned into toxic waste that fouls the air and adjacent water bodies. Crowding creates health problems, resulting in the chronic overuse of antibiotics. Read the rest of this entry »

A new study by Newcastle University proves that organic farmers who let their cows graze as nature intended are producing better quality milk.

The Nafferton Ecological Farming Group study found that grazing cows on organic farms in the UK produce milk which contains significantly higher beneficial fatty acids, antioxidants and vitamins than their conventional ‘high input’ counterparts.

During the summer months, one of the beneficial fats in particular – conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA9 – was found to be 60% higher. Read the rest of this entry »

The Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service this week announced a ban prohibiting all downer cattle from entering the food supply.

Timeline:

•  Jan. 12, 2004 — USDA prohibits all downer cattle from being slaughtered for human consumption, in response to the first U.S. case of Mad Cow (BSE) discovered in Washington State.
• July 13, 2007 — USDA reverses course and alters federal regulations to permit some crippled cows to be slaughtered for human consumption.

Read the rest of this entry »

Overview:
From both a nutritional and environmental impact perspective, farmed fish are far inferior to their wild counterparts:

• Despite being much fattier, farmed fish provide less usable beneficial omega 3 fats than wild fish.
• Due to the feedlot conditions of aquafarming, farm-raised fish are doused with antibiotics and exposed to more concentrated pesticides than their wild kin. Farmed salmon, in addition, are given a salmon-colored dye in their feed, without which, their flesh would be an unappetizing grey color.
• Aquafarming also raises a number of environmental concerns, the most important of which may be its negative impact on wild salmon. It has now been established that sea lice from farms kill up to 95% of juvenile wild salmon that migrate past them.

Read the rest of this entry »