For a long time, one could only assume based on the government’s cruel treatment of small food producers that its position on food freedom was that such freedom doesn’t exist. Now, one need not wonder. In court documents in response to a recent lawsuit against it, the FDA has stated outright that American’s do not have the right to choose their own food.
The mainstream media usually goes to great lengths to portray the government and industry as forces for good. But occasionally truth will emerge, even from the mainstream media. On May 8, 2012, the local Fox station in New York City aired a feature on the growing raw milk movement in which it treated the movement very fairly. Media coverage like this will not only help to educate more people about the movement, it indicates that the movement is already very substantial.
It is generally understood that men die younger than women, but why? Many will state as reasons that men’s jobs are more stressful and more physically demanding, or that men are more prone to death by war or violence. But I don’t think that these reasons are as valid today as they once were, and in any event they cannot entirely account for the difference. I believe that the difference is more biological and fundamental, and it is ultimately this: Men are physically bigger.
Mad Cow Disease has reared its ugly head again. According to a USDA press release issued on April 24, 2012, the USDA confirmed a case of Mad Cow in an animal in central California. One would hope that the government would act against the large beef industry in the same severe manner as it would if the offense were committed by a small farmer. Unfortunately, it has chosen its normal course of conduct–defend the large industry at all costs.
I’ve noticed something about the healthy food movement in which I am a part. It lacks MEN. Although many of the leaders of the movement are men, it seems that the general membership is mostly women. Why? Are men more concerned with money and power? Do they simply shy away from pursuits related to proper home-making? Or is there another explanation?
An increasing number of people are wisely trying to avoid foods that contain monosodium glutamate (MSG). This task is made difficult, however, by deceptive food labels and the FDA rules that allow them. Even when MSG appears to be absent from a list of ingredients on a food label, it is usually nevertheless present. It is simply hidden under a different name.
Grocery stores have lots of different kinds of eggs. All come from chickens, but some are labeled “all natural”, others “organic”, and still others “free-range”. Some are even “organic free range”. So what are the differences and which are best?
How would Mitt Romney treat small farms if he became president? Probably with the same contempt as his recent predecessors. If his selections for his Agricultural Advisory Committee is any indication, a Romney presidency will bring with it more Monstanto, more GMO, more pesticides, more depleted soils, more small-farm destruction, and otherwise more of the policies that favor industrial agriculture and the conventional food system. In short, a vote for Mitt Romney is a vote to kill more small farms.
In his book Exitotoxins, The Taste that kills, Russell L. Blaylock, MD, a board-certified neurosurgeon, explains the devestating health effects of MSG, a taste-enhancing chemical that is included in virtually all processed food. And in a recent interview, Dr. Blaylock explains the broader reason for the inclusion of toxins such as MSG and fluoride in the food and water supplies. Although they are touted as harmless and even beneficial, such toxins are actually included as part of a political movement intended to reduce the human population by making you sick and by keeping you from reproducing.
America is no longer the land of the free. So much innocent conduct is illegal today, including many small things like children selling lemonade, that it boggles the imagination. Much of this illegality relates to people’s rights to obtain the foods of their choosing. Fox News recently aired a special featuring John Stossel called Illegal Everything in which it highlighted this ridiculous modern American reality.
Do we in America live in a police state? A police state is essentially a government operated at the whim of the polie rather than by the rule of law. Although Americans pride themselves on living in a democracy, our system of government is not a democracy. Most of the actual law-making and law-enforcement undertaken by our government, including in the regulation of access to nutritious food, is undertaken by federal and state agencies, the personnel of which are completely unelected and therefore completely unaccountable through the democratic process. Given the great amount of power that our government has abdicated to these agencies and the often arbitrary nature of their actions, it is safe to say that our society is no longer a democracy but is a police state.
Health food stores contain numerous foods that are labeled “organic,” some of which are highly processed. Many people would assume that such foods, even if heavily processed, are healthy. This assumption is unwarranted. While all organic foods may indeed lack certain harmful elements like residual pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, and genetically modified ingredients, such foods are not necessary healthy–for the environment, for the animals, or for you.
The conventional food industry uses enormous amounts of antibiotics in the feed of livestock. Livestock consume approximately 80% of the antibiotics sold in the U.S. This heavy use of antibiotics is necessary to prevent diseases that would otherwise spread among such animals due to the filthy conditions in which animals in the conventional food system are forced to live. Recently, the FDA has received praise in the media for its efforts to restrict the use of certain antibiotics. Such praise is not deserved because, while restricting the use of one tiny class of antibiotics, it has abandoned plans for broader restrictions.
Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources is about to put into effect a new regulation that will effectively outlaw the raising of pigs in Michigan, with the large exception of an undefined category described as species “involved in domestic hog production.” This move would give the DNR complete discretion to destroy any pig-raising operation that it chooses and is a blatent attempt to further the interests of the large confinement pork industry in Michigan by eliminating the competition posed by small farms raising heritage breeds of pigs.
The American food industry depends on oil at every stage from seed to plate. But it was not always so dependent, and energy was not always so cheap. It is only the historically recent availability of cheap fossil fuels that has allowed the food industry to experience unlimited growth. But this growth of industry has not been without its side effects, one of which is the increased disconnect between industry and consumers and the accompanying loss of transparency. A second is the food source’s dependence on cheap oil, which creates a likelihood of severe food shortages when there occurs an event that ends the age of cheap oil. Upon such an occurrence, only those with a connection to local food sources may find themselves with food to eat.
