" Frankenfood Hater said...
Good job writing that one up! Good luck to all you readers out there. Not even staying away from the fast food "restaurants" and standard grocery stores is enough. You have to read every label and investigate every meat product to find out what's in it and where it came from. There is high fructose corn syrup in things you wouldn't even imagine. Meat can be 100% vegetarian fed and still be bad, it could have been fed corn in a feed lot under horrific conditions. To be called free range they only need to have access to outdoors for 15 mins before they are slaughtered. You need to make sure that free range means never confined to be fed and that vegetarian diet means grass fed. Find out what CSA means and whether there are any near you. Find smaller grocery stores that sell at least some organic foods and are small enough that you can talk to the people who work there about what they sell. It is more costly, I can sympathize with families who can't afford to eat healthy food. Shame on the people who are responsible for them not being able to afford it and shame on the people who are responsible for the only things they can afford being so horrible. "
April 8, 2010 5:51:00 AM PDT
Hey there ...thanks for taking the time to comment. You make some very good points about what has happened to the farm delivery system and the way big corporations have stealthed in and taken over, leaving everyone vulerable to their very bad decisions, from farmers to workers to consumers, not to mention the cruelty to other sentient beings in this ugly system. It does not have to be this way!
What you say is sadly true. We have let the needy down by subsidizing corn and soy beans so that all the additives made from it, and not fit to feed to any growing child, are so cheap that they are ubiquitous throughout the diet..hidden in it, ready to cause this epidemic of early onset diabetes. One of the farmers was left allergic to all anti biotics that had been tried for her. What sort of system of raising animals for food is that??
To get back to the kids and the poor, after their only affordable diet renders them ill, then the so called "elites" look down their noses and snear, saying something to the effect that it's all poor families' faults because food is a "choice".
So, this is about "choice" is it? Why did corporate giants in the industry "choose" to load the airwaves with ads aimed at kids, many of whom are getting so little to eat in the first place, and then make these bad (can't bring myself to call them foods) foods cheaper than any of the good food? Such evil things don't spring up overnight. It was probably a carefully planned and executed plan in the first place. They didn't leave anything to chance, skipping around the hallways of the Congress and pummeling the Halls of Justice, and the farmers, with their highly paid "three piece suits".
i presume you have (and if you haven't check them out of Library NOW) Michael Pollan's 2 books that deal specifically with some of these problems (these books are not for the squeamish--the details of how food is "PRODUCED" are a bad as scenes from the 100 year old The Jungle
ReplyDeleteBook A
The Omnivores Dilemma
Book B
In Defense of Food
the problem is food products (vs food!) are an industry--and they are in business to sell thing.
the problem is so deep and wide--its hard to know where to start to resolve..
(yesterday "headline" on local (TV) news--BREASTFEEDING can save your child life!
Really? the best thing you can feed a new born is the food nature(and you!) designed? and not a bunch of artifical crap? whoda guessed!
(both my kids were breast feed!)
You might want to do some reading up on H.R. 2749 that the democrats passed last summer in the house. It outlaws all use of heirloom seeds and turns all seed production over to Monsanto GMO soon will be all that is legal. So far it has stalled in the Senate. If someone is using foodstamps at a farmers market then they are breaking federal law. The Dept of agriculture is in charge of that.Since I know about raising livestock I will tell you that this is no meat that is corn free.Even grass fed is fed corn the last week of it's life.If you don't do that then the meat is as tough as leather.Raise your own food you will know what is in it.You can raise most of what you need all year by ploughing your back yard.
ReplyDeleteHi, Helen, and thank you for your comments. I agree, breast feeding, as long as the mother is eating well, is the best food.
ReplyDeleteAbout the books: I have read the first three, but I will need to read In Defense of Food.
Oh yes, the problem IS deep and wide. There is a ton of misinformation flying around the internet, and scare tactics abounding because Monsanto has a LOT of money and can set up thousands of web sites all with blunderbus' going full bore on any attempt to change things or put the teeth back into the FDA, which is OUR agency that has been stomped and left for road kill on the main highways.
Anonymous, thanks for your comments. I did read it, and see no mention of which you speak. I did however get most of my information about the "effects" of the bill from this web site:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/food/foodsafety/food-safety-enhancement-act/
Rather than the multitudes of ones like this one:
http://farmwars.info/?p=1320
Until the water restrictions hit in the 80's we grew a garden each year. Then it was impossible to do that. I'm a farm girl at heart, and really miss my gardens. My daughters grow gardens every year, and participate in CSA projects. This is one thing that you didn't mention. But Community Supported Ag is a wonderful thing to do.
Monsanto wants to scare the hell out of us so that we start screaming about the Food Safety bill, and fall off the turnip truck into a rut that puts us back to the time when we had NO one looking out for little kids who ate a fast food hamburger or fruit juice and died from it.
I want the American people to have a HUGE say in what gets to their tables, and the FDA is OUR own agency created to protect US from the outrageous behaviors of the roaring 20's, 30's you name it.
Americans are outraged by what the industry has done, and We the People want this control over what is out of control. We KNOW it's our OWN agency, paid for by US, to see that this gets done. They were NOT able to inspect even the most egregiously putrid of places. Now they will be able to shut them down and protect people from them.
Here is more on it:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epXNJNjYBvw&feature=related Monsanto sponsored the bill which frightens me. Guess I will be arrested for my seed saving?
The bad part is that what was said about Monsanto was a misconception by the publisher of a pretty powerful blog, and the maybe even WORSE part is that it got a lot of press.
ReplyDeleteRead here, please?
http://crooksandliars.com/nonny-mouse/monsanto-and-hr-875-take-two
If anyone tries to go any further than they have already with this ludicrous campaign to keep people from saving their seeds, there will be a huge uprising by the farmers in the United States. I can almost guarantee that will happen.
Don't stop saving your seeds. No one can make this thing stick. It verges on the unholy if you ask me. We won't give up without a HUGE fight. This isn't the Bush Era.