Looking for a Better Food Future for Our Kids
Community Projects, Consumerism, Food Shortages, GMOs, Health & Disease, Society — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor December 2, 2010
11-year-old Birke Baehr talks about his disgust with our present industrial food system.
As they say, out of the mouths of babes….
And talking about children, Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiative looks interesting. She’s working with faith-based and other community organisations to eliminate childhood obesity, food deserts and our junk food culture within a decade. The latest aspect of the campaign is of particular interest — including a determination to, amongst other things:
- Host 10,000 community gardens or farmers markets at congregations or community organizations
- Develop 2,600 school gardens in 2011 that will yield over 650,000 pounds of fresh produce, which will be provided to local families in need
- Get one million young people involved in community gardening.
Now that’s the kind of leadership we can use.
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Just Say No to GMO
Consumerism, GMOs, Health & Disease — by Jeffrey M. Smith November 20, 2010
Dear Reader
As we near the end of 2010, I wanted to personally thank you for helping to make this year an unprecedented success in raising awareness about the dangers of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Supermarket News predicted the upsurge in US consumer concern 2010, and it’s happening.
With your support, we’re getting our message out to millions each month through print, media, and internet channels. During October’s Non-GMO Month, the popular health newsletter Mercola.com emailed our GMO articles every day for a week to over 1.5 million homes, followed by a videotaped interview of Dr. Mercola and I.
Comments (8)Spreading the White Plague
Biodiversity, Health & Disease, Livestock — by George Monbiot November 16, 2010
The governments of both the UK and Wales could almost be trying to turn bovine TB into a pandemic.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
It’s one of those issues, like mad cow disease, which begins at the distant margins of public life, then explodes into the centre ground of politics. Anyone can see it coming – except, perhaps, the government.
Comments (1)Facts of Life
Biodiversity, Comedy Break, Health & Disease, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Marc Roberts November 11, 2010
Click for full view
Courtesy: Marc Roberts
This one stems from a DotEarth story about epidemic rises in incidences of deformed beaks amongst the birds of Alaska and elsewhere.
Comments (0)Three Major Reports
Biodiversity, Deforestation, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Oyvind Holmstad October 28, 2010
A Viable Food Future
 Download here |
What kind of food production can:
- drastically reduce poverty
- reduce climate change and cool the planet
- restore biodiversity, soil fertility and water resources
- improve livelihoods and provide employment for billions of people
- produce enough, good, and nutritious food for 9 billion people or more?
From the report:
Regulation and transformation of unsustainable large-scale industrialised agriculture, livestock raising and fisheries towards smaller-scale ecological production systems is urgently required if hunger is to be eradicated, an equitable food system established and the environment restored. Small-scale farmers should be recognized for their ability to feed the world, reduce climate change, preserve the natural wealth of agricultural and grazing lands, soil, biodiversity, water and aquatic resources that they use in production. Local food production and small-scale agricultural industries in rural areas have the potential to provide decent jobs, which are of utmost importance especially for rural youth and women, and to revitalise agrarian, pastoral and fisheries-based economies, thereby preventing distress or involuntary migration to cities. It is time to move in the direction of a viable food future.
Download the full report, available in English, Spanish and French.
Comments (3)Paul McCartney on the Industrial Meat Industry
Consumerism, Health & Disease, Society — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor
Paul McCartney shows us just how evil the industrialised meat industry is. And, guess what. It’s pretty evil.
Caution: viewer discretion advised
Further Watching:
- Pandemic Ahoj (includes ‘Earthlings’ video, at bottom)
Sean Penn on Haiti – “It’s Bad”
Aid Projects, Food Shortages, Health & Disease, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 26, 2010
Further Reading:
Introduction to Weston Price
Fermenting, Health & Disease — by Judith Goldsmith October 21, 2010
This is an introduction to Weston Price for Permaculturists, because I think the two are natural allies (and so do some other Permaculturists I know).
I first learned of Dr. Weston Price’s “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” (published 1939) from one of the Whole Earth Catalogs, possibly the Essential WEC published in 1986. When I got a copy from the library and read it, I was amazed, and made some major changes in my life (cutting down on sugar and white flour; years later I learned from continuing health problems to cut them out of my diet completely, to great benefit).
Comments (12)How to Rid the World of GMOs
Consumerism, GMOs, Health & Disease — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 11, 2010
In this video interview, anti-GMO crusader Jeffrey Smith talks about how revelations of the scientific health risks directly associated with GMOs in 1998 caused sufficient public disgust and outrage to result in food retailers across Europe dumping GMOs from their product lineup in 1999 for fear of losing their customers. As retailers began to make this move, other retailers had to follow suit or risk being boycotted themselves.
Public disgust with GMOs effectively and efficiently erected a European-wide barrier to the likes of Monsanto.
Jeffrey Smith estimates it only takes five percent of us to influence food retailers – and the good news is we easily have more than this percentage of anti-GMO individuals, as evidenced by the percentage of public who already purchase organic over conventional products. We just need these people to go one step further than just saying "I buy organic wherever possible" to add an extra caveat – "I buy organic wherever possible, but if I must buy conventional, I make sure it’s non GMO." Getting that message across to retailers will start a tidal wave of action to end the sale, and hence the development, of these ‘foods’.
We can do this! Watch the video to find out how.
Resources:
- Non-GMO Shopping Guide
- Growing list of retailers who are GMO-free (Background on this here.)
- Non-GMO resources for retail stores – suggest these to your local retailer, or buy them yourself and take them to your local store. Ask the owner to allow these to be placed in store.
World’s First Genetically Engineered Animal for Mass Consumption On its Way
Consumerism, GMOs, Health & Disease — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor September 23, 2010
Not only are these unfortunate creatures genetically modified to eat continually and grow twice as fast, but they have a lab-induced sexual identity crisis. They’re neomales – a genetically female fish which has been masculinised in order to make it sterile. Despite their almost complete sterility apparently 1-3 in 1000 are still able to reproduce, and thus could potentially impact wild fish stocks.
The foreign gene comes from the ocean pout, a completely unrelated eel-like species that can survive in extremely cold water. The pout has natural antifreeze properties in its blood – which, when transferred to the Atlantic salmon, enables the ‘new’ fish to grow year round. But wait, there’s more. Before the pout’s gene is transferred to the Atlantic salmon (injected into the salmon’s eggs), it’s grafted into the fast-growing chinook salmon’s gene to take up that trait also.
Comments (5)AquAdvantage Salmon Ready for Commerce?
GMOs, Health & Disease — by I-SIS
AquAdvantage© Salmon, next to its smaller, natural Atlantic Salmon counterpart
In the absence of feeding studies the commercial release of GM salmon is too hazardous to consider Prof. Joe Cummins
This report has been submitted to US Food and Drug Administration on behalf of the Institute of Science in Society. © I-SIS.org.uk
The United States Department of Health and Human Services Food and Drug Administration Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee will meet on 19 September 2010, and on 20 September 2010, it will consider issues regarding the safety and effectiveness of the new animal drug that is the subject of a new animal drug application (NADA) concerning AquAdvantage salmon produced by AquaBounty Technologies, Inc. These genetically engineered Atlantic salmon are intended to grow faster than conventionally bred Atlantic salmon [1]. The new drug being considered is a growth hormone gene that was transferred from Chinook salmon to the genome of the Atlantic salmon. Both the gene and the protein it produces are presumed to be a new veterinary drug that is to be released to the environment in the genetically modified (GM) Salmon.
Comments (3)Fruit Flies in a Bottle
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Population, Society, peak oil — by Ernest Partridge September 20, 2010
Copyright 2010 by Ernest Partridge. Published here with permission of the author.
Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings. – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
I
Place a few fruit flies in a bottle with a layer of honey at the bottom, and they will quickly multiply to an enormous number, and then, just as quickly, die off to the very last, poisoned by their wastes. Similarly, add a few yeast cells to grape juice, seal the bottle, and the cells will consume the sugar and turn it into alcohol. When the alcohol rises to 12.5% it will kill off all the yeast, and the wine will be ready for the table.
Fruit flies and yeast in a bottle are embarked upon suicidal endeavors. They can’t help it. They don’t know any better, lacking the cognitive equipment to “know” anything at all.
Human beings, we are told, are different. Humans can utilize their accumulated knowledge, evaluate evidence and apply reason, and with these skills and accomplishments they can imagine alternative futures and choose among them to their advantage.
Comments (28)Permaculture and Home Birth
Eco-Villages, Health & Disease, People Systems, Society, Village Development, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Kirsten Small September 17, 2010
I’ve been catching babies as an obstetrician for a good while now, but only learning about permaculture for the past two years. Like many, I have discovered permaculture from the perspective of someone wanting tips about how to grow a few edible plants in my backyard, but have discovered that it is so much more. As I have read my way through whatever information I can get my hands on I have seen reference to home birth as fitting into the general concept of permaculture (eg David Holmgren’s Permaculture Flower) and have been thinking about why that might be.
Let me make some up front declarations first, so as not to confuse or mislead. I work in a hospital setting. My babies were born in a hospital. I have never been to a home birth either as a care provider or a support person. But I do provide “backup” for women who choose home birth and their midwives, and enjoy being able to do this. I am good friends with a handful of women who are skilled home birth midwives. So while I can’t profess a personal or professional expertise, I do think I have a passable understanding of some of the issues.
Comments (18)Monsanto Has Us Walking the Gangplank, and Wants to Give That Final Push
Biodiversity, Deforestation, Economics, Food Shortages, GMOs, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, News, Population, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor September 9, 2010
Monsanto is starting an advocacy campaign in Australia, calling for greater acceptance of their GMO wares. Aside from all the environmental and personal health issues involved with GMOs, Monsanto is also conveniently ignoring that mother of all wake up calls, peak oil. Without cheap energy, their large scale globalised monocrop systems will collapse.
Click for full view
Courtesy: Marc Roberts
It seems we have Monsanto on the defensive, and offensive:
Comments (10)Global biotechnology company Monsanto has begun an education and advocacy campaign to change the opposition many Australia consumers have to genetically modified food.
Speaking at the NSW Farmwriters Forum in Sydney, Monsanto’s head in Australia, Peter O’Keefe, argued that organic and permaculture production was "not viable" on a large scale, and Australia was falling behind other countries in productivity improvements because of the reluctance to embrace GM technology. – ABC.net.au
GMOs: Jeffrey Smith Interview and More
Consumerism, GMOs, Health & Disease — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor September 8, 2010
This video is longish, at almost an hour, but it’s a great candid interview by Alex Bogusky with anti-GMO hero Jeffrey Smith, with lots of shocking information that you need to know about GMOs. If you can, take the time to listen and digest.
From YouTube:
International best-selling author Jeffrey M Smith (Seeds of Deception, GMO Trilogy, and Genetic Roulette), joins Alex Bogusky & his dad Bill, for a sobering conversation about America’s food supply. What regulations are in place to protect you and your family? The answers will shock you. And hopefully, will make you rethink your choices as a consumer.
And, for good measure, watch a two part video specifically on the health dangers of GMOs:
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