Food Democracy

Approximately 76 million Americans — one in four — are sickened by foodborne disease each year. Of these, an estimated 325,000 are hospitalized and 5,000 die, costing the U.S. $44 billion annually.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008/07/cpsi_food_safety.html

“The price of grain is now directly tied to the price of oil. We used to have a grain economy and a fuel economy. But now they’re beginning to fuse.”   — Lester Brown, president of Earth Policy Institute, a Washington research group

“The right of corporations to force-feed citizens of the world with culturally inappropriate and hazardous foods has been made absolute [in the globalizing economy]. The right to food, the right to safety, the right to culture are all being treated as trade barriers that need to be dismantled…we have to reclaim our right to nutrition and food safety. We have to reclaim our right to protect the earth and her diverse species. We have to stop this corporate theft from the poor and from nature. Food democracy…is the new agenda for ecological sustainability and social justice.”—Vandana Shiva in “Stolen Harvest”

“Any scientist who tells you they know that GMOs are safe and not to worry about it, is either ignorant of the history of science or is deliberately lying. Nobody knows what the long-term effect will be.” - Geneticist, David Suzuki, giving the 2008 Commonwealth Lecture in London

“As far as genetic engineering for food, that is the great experiment that has failed. They literally have the entire world market against them. All those dreams… the blind will see, the lame will walk… has turned out to be science fiction. They are basically chemical companies selling more chemicals. They’ve been able to spread these herbicide-promoting plants around because it is more convenient for farmers who can just mass-spray their crops. But they’ve given absolutely nothing to the consumer while causing more chemical pollution and contamination.” - Lawyer, Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety (USA)

“We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered.  A nation can flounder as readily in the face of moral and spiritual bankruptcy as it can through financial bankruptcy.” Dr. Martin Luther King, April 1967

“We will depend on them for every seed we grow, every crop we grow, and if they control seed they control food, they know it. It’s strategic. It’s more powerful than bombs, it’s more powerful than guns.” Vandana Shiva in India

“As far as genetic engineering (genetic modification) for food, that is the great experiment that has failed. They literally have the entire world market against them. All those dreams… the blind will see, the lame will walk… has turned out to be science fiction. They are basically chemical companies selling more chemicals. They’ve been able to spread these herbicide-promoting plants around because it is more convenient for farmers who can just mass-spray their crops. But they’ve given absolutely nothing to the consumer while causing more chemical pollution and contamination.” - Lawyer, Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety (USA)

See also: 50 Harmful Effects of Genetically Modified Food

“Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” Albert Einstein

Command to Care for Creation

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” (Genesis 2:15)

“You must keep my decrees and my laws…. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.” (Leviticus 18:26)

“The land itself must observe a sabbath to the Lord. For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and garner their crops. But in the seventh year the land is to have a sabbath of rest, a sabbath to the Lord…. The land is to have a year of rest.” (Leviticus 25:2-5; cf. Exodus 23:10-11)

“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. Throughout the land that you hold, you shall provide for the redemption of the land.” (Leviticus 25:23-24) Read the rest of this entry »

‘If you control the oil you control the country; if you control food, you control the population.’ Henry Kissinger