Art piece showing Iowa's top soil loss

 I found this on BoingBoing, which shows the amount of top soil being lost due to large scale farming over the last 150 years.   Basically, from 14-16 inches in the 1800's to less than 6-8 inches today. 

Great egg hunt picture

So, the Boston Globe had a great "egg hunt" picture and the Atlantic this time line article about the egg recalls.

Last month the nation wide recall of eggs seemed to bring some level of awareness of just how bad our food system has gotten.

Will it change how we buy things? perhaps for some people.

Will it change how we process our food.... unfortunately, I think not.  According to the Atlantic article, DeCoster the owner of the chicken farm "has done business in Turner, Maine, his hometown, for over 60 years—and has incurred a decades-long list of violations there. DeCoster's history of legal cases in Maine demonstrates that the more recent labor, environmental, and public health offenses are part of a long pattern that continues today, and in several states."

If you have 60 years worth of violations....how can you possibly still be allowed to process food?

GMO Salmon... yup.. that's what we need

Discovery News published a article today about how the FDA is getting ready to approve the sale of genetically modified salmon for consumption.

I don't understand why we keep mucking around with plants and animals with traits that aren't even within the same species/genus.  At least in this case we stuck with another fish. :)    But, do we really need to make fish grow faster?  For what? 

I know I am completely wacko about GMO -- but I don't think anything we have done to date has proven completely beneficial.

• The corn and soy GMO's created so that they are "Round-up ready" has introduced a new, stronger variant of weeds that are able to withstand Round-up.   
• In North Dakota, GM canola plants have cross pollinated with wild plants.   see here
• There are concerns that GMO food can cause/promote food allergies (see here for a list of some of the benefits and concerns from the Human Genome Project).  Either due to allergen genes being placed into a product.  Say peanuts into wheat.  Or, a new allergen being created due to the modification.  Since the US does not require labeling - there is no way to know if a food source is a GMO and/or what has been added.
• Aside from impacting bio-diversity - we may also be changing the macro environment.  By the cross pollination that is occurring, we cannot say what it is doing to both the wild plant and/or animal life. What are the impacts to wild life such as birds to the new "wild" GM plants found in ND?
• And do I really trust agri-business to make sure that what they are selling me is real food.  Here is a 2003 article from Seattle PI where they state that "pharmaceutical giant Hoffman-La Roche, which manufactures the dyes, provides salmon manufacturers with swatches of pink hues arranged in a fan formation, much like one would find at a paint store. They call it the "SalmoFan." Dye for the selected shade is then added to the salmon's processed food pellets."  This was done to fool customers into thinking that they were buying wild salmon not farmed. 

In our focus to produce as much food as we can - we have with "traditional" (agri-business) farming produced foods that are less nutrient dense than they were before we mucked around them.  And, still the information isn't out there to the average person that only by eating heirloom / organic are they going to be able to get all the nutrients that should be available in a vegetable or fruit.   What are the implications of a GMO product in the food chain to both us and the planet at large?

If these fish get accidental released into the wild -what will it do to our wild salmon populations?  And, do I really believe that there won't be a accidental release? From this 1997 report ... "Escapes of Farmed Salmon from Pens: Just this year, 300,000 Atlantic salmon were released into Puget Sound when their pens were accidentally ripped open. In Norway, where as many as 1.3 million salmon escape from farms each year, one third of the salmon spawning in coastal rivers are not wild, but escaped salmon. ..."   1/3rd of the salmon spawning in 1997 were not wild! What does that make the numbers now??

Per the Monterey Bay Aquarium... farmed salmon is on the do not buy list because of accidental releases, parasites and diseases being transferred to wild salmon, waste being directly released into the oceans...etc. And yet... we want to add to this by putting GM fish into the mix.

It makes me so angry that we are so short sighted. :(

Big Agra - whoo whoo

Ok, this shouldn't be new to anyone.... but apparently the National Cattlemen's Beef Association used marketing money generated under the Checkoff program for lobbying purposes.  Both the NY Times and the Atlantic had good coverage on the misuse of funds.

What I don't understand is why the beef industry even needs to be in the checkoff program.  Since the program is suppose to "improve the market position of the covered commodity by expanding markets, increasing demand, and developing new uses and markets" - I don't see where beef doesn't have the market covered.  Aside from soy-burgers (which really isn't a beef alternative) -- what is the competition?  Don't they have the market cornered on beef?

No wonder we don't have real farmer's anymore ... it's impossible to out spend the large businesses.  The only good thing out of this is as the Atlantic put it we can "Chalk one up for this administration's attempt to be transparent".  I honestly don't think we need to be providing subsidies to agri-business.  Once food becomes a production process and people are removed from it, one doesn't know how much is propaganda and how much is real (as in this case with Fair Oaks Farms who promote themselves as a small family run farm but until I read the article and found out it wasn't - which kinda pissed me off since I made a major effort to find their brand at one point).

Another rant done. :)

Basically, get to know your local farmer, buy local, organic - as most small farmer's are organic and sustainable (too expensive to buy all those chemicals).  :)

Why? Why do food processors put sugar in everything?

So, I can no longer buy my from my favorite bacon vendor.  I am so sad.

I use to buy bacon from Wallace once a month as that was how often he came into the city.  So, last go I bought a lot of bacon not knowing that he had changed his recipe for curing bacon.  Apparently, it was a choice between nitrates and/or sugar.  I do not know why that is the choice.

But, cane sugar doesn't agree with me.  And, really, I don't want sugar in my diet from sources that do not need sugar.  I just don't get why we have to put sugar in everything! no wonder we all get fat.


Anyway, I'm now on a quest for a new bacon provider.  Sigh... more work.


I'm actually asked the BF what he thought about possibly making my own bacon. but that would definitely be more work. *grin*

WI and the new prohibition

WI has been having ongoing debates about raw milk.  Apparently their Senate passed the resolution to allow the sale of raw milk but the Governor vetoed it - even after he said he would not veto the bill.

I do like this cartoon from WI State Journal

How about some GMO's in your food?

I was surprised by how much of my food is already genetically modified (well, the stuff that I don't buy from the farmer's market).  I knew about corn, which is one of the things we have given up. Even the kitty cats! and they are both actually healthier for it.

In a study done on GMO corn/maize  "conclude[d] that these data highlight signs of hepatorenal toxicity, possibly due to the new pesticides specific to each GM corn. In addition, unintended direct or indirect metabolic consequences of the genetic modification cannot be excluded." Which even before I looked it up - sounded scary!  It was even worse once I found out it was "chemical-driven liver damage".

So aside from corn - we can now thank agri-business for - soybeans, canola, papaya, wheat, rice....the list is pretty long and unfortunately since it doesn't have to be documented... well, you get the idea. So, it is pretty cool - Wholefoods (AKA: whole pay check) has joined up with a few others to prevent GMO's from being our defacto food.  They have agreed to test, verify and label their products as non-GMO.  See www.nongmoproject.com, for a list of providers and additional info.

Here is a video about the history of how GMO (genetically modified organisms) were created. How it has been added into the food chain with us not being really aware of it and how "Whoever controls the seeds, controls the food." 

It is 88 min long... so watch it when you have some time. :)




Not to point out the obvious -- but what is with the commercials for this video?  did they think just because it's a food topic that stouffer's would be a good choice?? They didn't watch the video, did they?