11 Scariest Things Called Food

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I always tell my daughters they can make a difference in the world, even at their tender ages of 10 and 7. To them, I probably sound like the teacher from Peanuts—they're more interested in soccer and American Girl right now—but I hope the lesson eventually sinks in.

My latest example of a kid heroics for them: 15-year-old Sarah Kavanagh from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, who gathered more than 200,000 signatures in her online petition asking Gatorade to remove a controversial flame-retardant chemical.

 Last week, Gatorade announced that they would be removing the ingredient, brominated vegetable oil (BVO), within the next couple of months. That's great news—especially for me personally, because I love the stuff! Actually, so do my daughters.

While Gatorade spokeswoman Molly Carter said the decision wasn’t in response to Sarah’s petition, the teen is claiming victory. Either way, we all win.

Truth is, chemicals that are used as weed killer, flame retardant, and sunscreen are startlingly common in your supermarket. But you won’t find “carcinogens,” “paint chemicals,” or “beaver anal gland juice” on the back panel. They’ll be hidden under names like “Butylated HydroxyAnisole” or “natural flavoring.” Break through the science experiment to find out what you’re really eating.

Here are the 11 scariest ingredients in your food:

Acesulfame Potassium (Acesulfame-K)

WHAT IT IS: A calorie-free artificial sweetener 200 times sweeter than sugar. It is often used with other artificial sweeteners to mask a bitter aftertaste.
FOUND IN: More than 5,000 food products worldwide, including diet soft drinks and no-sugar-added ice cream. Click here to discover The Strange Reason Diet Soda Makes You Fat.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Although the FDA has approved it for use in most foods, many health and industry insiders claim that the decision was based on flawed tests. Animal studies have linked the chemical to lung and breast tumors and thyroid problems.

Aspartame

WHAT IT IS: A near-zero-calorie artificial sweetener made by combining two amino acids with methanol. Most commonly used in diet soda, aspartame is 180 times sweeter than sugar.
FOUND IN: More than 6,000 grocery items including diet sodas, yogurts, and the table-top sweeteners NutraSweet and Equal. (Did you know that most flavored yogurt is a step above ice cream? Find out the 25 New Healthy Foods That Aren’t.)
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Over the past 30 years, the FDA has received thousands of consumer complaints due mostly to neurological symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, memory loss, and, in rare cases, epileptic seizures. Many studies have shown aspartame to be completely harmless, while others indicate that the additive might be responsible for a range of cancers.

STRANGE BUT TRUE: If beating asthma with sweet potatoes sounds too good to be true, wait till you read these 14 crazy-sounding (but completely true) health tips!

Titanium Dioxide

WHAT IT IS: A component of the metallic element titanium commonly used in paints and sunscreens. The food industry adds it to hundreds of products to make overly processed items appear whiter.
FOUND IN: Processed salad dressing, coffee creamers, and icing.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Titanium is a mined substance that's sometimes contaminated with toxic lead. Plus, most white dressings (like creamy ranch) aren’t great for you anyway. Both your health and your waistline will fare better if you go with an olive oil- or vinegar-based salad topper instead.  

Glyphosphate

WHAT IT IS: The active ingredient in the popular week killer Roundup. It’s used on corn and soy crops genetically engineered to withstand a heavy dousing of the chemical.
FOUND IN: Most nonorganic packaged foods containing corn- and soy-derived ingredients. Because it’s a systemic herbicide, it’s taken up by the plant—meaning you eat it.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Glyphosphate exposure is linked to obesity, learning disabilities, and infertility.
BONUS TIP: For simple steps to live a longer and healthier life, check out Dr. Oz's 25 Greatest Health Tips Ever.

Butylated HydroxyAnisole (BHA)

WHAT IT IS: A petroleum-derived antioxidant used to preserve fats and oils.
FOUND IN: Beer, crackers, cereals, butter, and foods with added fats.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Studies have shown BHA to cause cancer in the forestomachs of rats, mice, and hamsters. The Department of Health and Human Services classifies the preservative as "reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen."

Interesterified Fat

WHAT IT IS: A semi-soft fat created by chemically blending fully hydrogenated and non-hydrogenated oils. It was developed in response to the public demand for an alternative to trans fats.
FOUND IN: Pastries, pies, margarine, frozen dinners, and canned soups.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Testing on these fats has not been extensive, but the early evidence doesn't look promising. A study by Malaysian researchers showed a 4-week diet of 12 percent interesterified fats increased the ratio of LDL to HDL cholesterol. Furthermore, this study showed an increase in blood glucose levels and a decrease in insulin response.

Red #3 (Erythrosine) and Red #40 (Allura Red)

WHAT THEY ARE: Food dyes that are orange-red and cherry red, respectively. Red #40 is the most widely used food dye in America.
FOUND IN: Fruit cocktail, candy, chocolate cake, cereal, beverages, pastries, maraschino cherries, and fruit snacks. (Confused by now about what you can eat? We scoured the supermarket for the 125 Best Packaged Foods in America.)
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: The FDA has proposed a ban on Red #3 in the past, but so far the agency has been unsuccessful in implementing it. After the dye was inextricably linked to thyroid tumors in rat studies, the FDA managed to have the liquid form of the dye removed from external drugs and cosmetics.

Yellow #5 (Tartrazine) and Yellow #6 (Sunset Yellow)

WHAT THEY ARE: The second and third most common food colorings, respectively.
FOUND IN: Cereal, pudding, bread mix, beverages, chips, cookies, and condiments.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Several studies have linked both dyes to learning and concentration disorders in children, and there are piles of animal studies demonstrating potential risks such as kidney and intestinal tumors. One study found that mice fed high doses of sunset yellow had trouble swimming straight and righting themselves in water. The FDA does not view these as serious risks to humans.

Castoreum

WHAT IT IS: Beaver anal gland juice. Really. Beavers combine it with their urine to mark their territory.
FOUND IN: Vanilla or raspberry flavoring in processed foods, labeled only as “natural flavoring.”
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: It’s beaver anal gland juice.
You won't believe what else you've been putting in your body.

McDonalds Is Serving Restructured Meat

Well, it's that time of year again when McDonald's rolls out its venerable McRib sandwich. Tens of millions of Americans will purchase one - or, judging by the nation's ever-widening belt line, several - but most will do so without knowing all they should know about this popular sandwich.

Besides high caloric content, there are several other reasons why you should avoid the McRib, a boneless pork product smothered in BBQ sauce that famously resembles a rack of ribs, as much as you avoid most of the other "delicacies" served by this fast-food behemoth. In addition, The Blaze reports, there are several "fun facts" about the sandwich you may not have known:

A sandwich 'built' from scratch?: The McRib is a product of Rene Arend, who came up with the idea and design of the sandwich. That said, Richard Mandigo, a professor from the University of Nebraska, who developed the "restructured meat product" that the McRib is actually made of.

According to Chicago magazine, citing a 1995 article by Mandigo, "restructured meat product" is described thusly:

Restructured meat products are commonly manufactured by using lower-valued meat trimmings reduced in size by comminution (flaking, chunking, grinding, chopping or slicing). The comminuted meat mixture is mixed with salt and water to extract salt-soluble proteins. These extracted proteins are critical to produce a "glue" which binds muscle pieces together. These muscle pieces may then be reformed to produce a "meat log" of specific form or shape.

 The log is then cut into steaks or chops which, when cooked, are similar in appearance and texture to their intact muscle counterparts. ... Such products as tripe, heart, and scalded stomachs are high in protein, completely edible, wholesome, and nutritious, and most are already used in sausage without objection.

Still hungry?

Packed with calories - and ingredients: In a time of labeling, when government entities and the public are pushing for more disclosure, the package for the McRib would have to grow just to list all of its ingredients.

According to the current box labeling, the sandwich consists of just five basic components - a pork patty and BBQ sauce with pickle slices, onions and a sesame bun.

But, as Time magazine points out, a closer examination of McDonald's own list of ingredients reveals that the sandwich contains a total of 70 ingredients, including azodicarbonamide, a flour-bleaching component that is often used to produce foamed plastics (think gym mats and the soles of shoes). In fact, "the compound is banned in Europe and Australia as a food additive," says Time. Other ingredients include ammonium sulfate and polysorbate 80.

Besides, the sandwich itself contains an incredible amount of calories - 500 at least - along with 26 grams of fat, 44 grams of carbohydrates and 980 milligrams of sodium, nearly half the recommended daily amount of about 2,400 milligrams.

Not a good choice for your heart: The ingredients, combined with a dose of 10 mg of saturated fat (nearly half of the recommended daily allowance), make the McRib an enemy of a healthy heart, say the experts.

"Think about that for a second: When you eat a McRib, you're eating the same chemical ingredients and compounds in those disgusting yoga mats at the gym. And that's on top of the fact that it tastes terrible in the first place," writes Rick Paulas, food editor for KCET, a public television network in southern California. "Which means it's time to ask: Why are we still eating this?"

That's a very valid question. In the meantime, that sound you hear is the further tightening of the nation's belt line.

Does 100% Natural Mean GMO Free?

When you purchase shampoo or cosmetics and it has a sticker on it that claims it is “natural”, what’s your impression? You think the ingredients are all-natural, right? Naturally, you are not alone. However, the agency who is in charge of certifying personal care items as “natural” seems to think GMO ingredients fit under this umbrella. No matter what product it is, 100% natural does NOT also mean GMO-free. The Question of 100% Natural The Natural Products Association (NPA) claims its role in regards to personal care items is to help consumers choose those products that contain only safe and natural ingredients. They say their job is “to protect and equip consumers to maximize their well being.” As a result, they developed a set of guidelines and a certification process for personal care creators. The “essence” of their labeling process is that the product must contain only 100% natural ingredients, be safe and free of ingredients with any suspected human health risk, be free from animal testing, and be packaged in environmentally friendly materials. But not only do they ignore the negative effects of GMOs, they do not even mention genetically modified ingredients on their “positive list” of ingredients. They act as if they don’t exist. In other words—they allow GMO ingredients to receive the “natural” certification. The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) is leading a charge to have this changed. Ronnie Cummins, the Executive Director of the agency says the NPA is deceiving consumers “by leading them to believe that the products they buy, stamped with the NPA Natural Seal, are truly natural. There is nothing natural about GMOs.” Incidentally, the NPA recently came out in opposition to Prop 37, the proposed legislation in California that would require GMO labeling. So, perhaps their goal isn't to “protect and equip” consumers as they allege. Perhaps, like so many other corporations, their goal is to increase profits, maximize the bottom line, and pull the wool over our eyes. Admittedly, products claiming to be 100% natural do have a higher chance of being better than products not carrying the label, but it’s important to know what the label really means. The definition of a ‘natural’ product has no defined parameters in law or regulation, so essentially these products can be — and many times are — as contaminated as what the consumer may have originally tried to avoid. Under federal regulations, it’s entirely acceptable to include additives that are not even deemed as ‘natural’, or use unnatural preparation methods like genetic modification or pasteurization. The product only has to be part ‘natural’. What can you Do? The OCA has begun a petition campaign and you can contribute. Soon after receiving thousands of emails, the NPA began blocking them. But the campaign is now being waged on social media sites. You can find the drafted email here on the OCA website and also find links to the NPA’s Facebook and LinkedIn pages. It takes about two minutes to do your part. Tell the NPA to wise up about GMOs and stand by their promise to “protect” consumers. And of course, we recommend buying 100% organic as much as possible, and purchasing items that contain the NON-GMO Project seal.

Washington State Joins California With Label GMO Initiative For Nov Ballot

In news out earlier this week, food and farming leaders from the Evergreen State are taking up the issue of labeling genetically engineered foods on the state’s ballot. Despite the fact that federal and state governments have largely either ignored or assiduously avoided the issue, Washington joins California in taking the matter directly to the voters. This should be no surprise, as ballot initiatives have proven the last resort when other policy arenas fail to take up or take action on public issues.The Food and Drug Agency (FDA) has failed to add labeling to everyday grocery products, despite repeated requests by millions of Americans. Earlier this year, over 500 organizations across the country in the Just Label It coalition, including PAN, sent a million petition signatures to FDA. Their response? “Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” reports Grist’s Tom Laskawy. After more than 19 state legislatures rejected measures mothers, farmers and farmworkers had no other recourse than to take the issue to the ballot. And they are in good standing. A majority of Americans support labeling in general and a statewide poll out this week by the Los Angeles Times, demonstrates that more than 60% of Californians support labeling. Eyes on the prize…California All eyes are on California. The stakes are high as labeling in the populous state with the ninth largest economy in the world promises to shift the entire marketplace. That’s why the opposition to the “Right to Know” Proposition 37, funded largely by the “Big 6” GE seed/pesticide corporations, is pumping millions more into PR efforts in the weeks leading up to the election. California's precedent-setting potential is likely also why other states are following suit. "Don't make any mistake, this is chemical companies" opposing labeling, said Trudy Bialic, director of public affairs at Seattle-based PCC Natural Markets and one of the lead groups taking up the measure in Washington. "It's the same people who brought us Agent Orange, DDT and PCBs, and they're saying now, 'Trust us with your food.'" Shining a light on industry’s 'dirty little secret' As PAN’s senior scientist Marcia Ishii-Eiteman points out on Civil Eats, the public is now seeing through industry’s “dirty little secret,” given new information out from scientists in the Evergreen State. In a report out this week drawn from USDA data, Washington State’s Chuck Benbrook documents the increased pesticide use as a result of GE crops. The treadmill of weed and insect resistance, and more pesticide use, presents challenges for farmers, rural communities and consumers alike. Benbrook had this to say: "Things are getting worse, fast. In order to deal with rapidly spreading resistant weeds, farmers are being forced to expand use of older, higher-risk herbicides." But if both California and Washington state used their purchasing power to push pause on the pesticide treadmill, what then?

GMO Ticking Time Bomb Documentary

GMO Ticking Time Bomb is a must-see video offering an information-rich overview of the situation with GMOs. It features interviews with people like Jeffrey Smith, Ronnie Cummins, David Murphy and more. In the film, Rima Laibow also explains how Monsanto and DuPont formed a joint venture to create the "Epicyte gene" that causes permanent, irreversible infertility in both men and women. Watch it here, if you dare: There is a conspiracy of oppression taking place right now against free speech about GMOs. Just this week, YouTube censored a whistleblower video that exposed Whole Foods employees lying about the fact that Whole Foods sells masses of genetically modified foods and is therefore a significant financial supporter of Monsanto. It is now perfectly clear that this video was censored because of its truthful message, not because it actually violated any real terms of service with YouTube. That's the reality in which we now live: Telling the truth about GMOs is practically a crime. The mainstream media, meanwhile, refuses to cover the truth about GMO dangers. And the U.S. government itself is, of course, completely sold out to corporate interests and thus won't warn the American people about GMOs, either. We quite literally live in an age so bizarre and irrational that the simple act of warning fellow citizens about poison in the food is now systematically suppressed. The status quo wants you to eat your poison, shut up, stop asking questions and check yourself in at the nearest for-profit cancer center once those tumors start to show up. That's the new system of oppression and slavery in America: It's medical slavery, economic slavery and even thought slavery.

Food Inflation, Food Shortges & Food Riots

Dees Illustration

A devastating global food crisis unlike anything we have ever seen in modern times is coming. Crippling drought and bizarre weather patterns have damaged food production all over the world this summer, and the UN and the World Bank have both issued ominous warnings about the food inflation that is coming.

To those of us in the Western world, a rise in the price of food can be a major inconvenience, but in the developing world it can mean the difference between life and death. 

 

Just remember what happened back in 2008. When food prices hit record highs it led to food riots in 28 different countries. Today, there are approximately 2 billion people that are malnourished around the globe. Even rumors of food shortages are enough to spark mass chaos in many areas of the planet. When people fear that they are not going to be able to feed their families they tend to get very desperate. That is why a recent CNN article declared that "2013 will be a year of serious global crisis". 

The truth is that we are not just facing rumors of a global food crisis - one is actually starting to unfold right in front of our eyes. The United States experienced the worst drought in more than 50 years this summer, and some experts are already declaring that the weather has been so dry for so long that tremendous damage has already been done to next year's crops.

 

 On the other side of the world, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan have all seen their wheat crops devastated by the horrible drought this summer. Australia has also been dealing with drought, and in India monsoon rains were about 15 percent behind pace in mid-August. Global food production is going to be much less than expected this year, and global food demand continues to steadily rise. What that means is that food inflation, food shortages and food riots are coming, and it isn't going to be pretty.

The United States exports more food than anyone else in the world, and that is why the entire globe has been nervously watching the horrific drought in the United States this summer with deep concern.

It has been the worst drought in more than 50 years, and it has absolutely devastated corn crops all over the nation. According to Bill Witherell, the U.S. corn crop this year "is said to be on a par with that of 1988 crop, the worst in the past thirty years."

Sadly, this will be the third year in a row that the yield for corn has declined in the United States.

That has never happened before in the history of the United States.

And coming into this year we were already in bad shape. In fact, U.S. corn reserves were sitting at a 15-year low at the end of 2011.

So where will we be at the end of 2012?

The official estimates for corn yields put out by the U.S. government just keep dropping, but many fear that they aren't dropping quickly enough. There have been some reports on the ground from some areas of the country that have been very distressing. The following is from a recent Wall Street Journal article....

Meanwhile, scouts with the Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour on Monday reported an average estimated corn yield in Ohio of 110.5 bushels per acre, down from the tour's estimate of 156.3 bushels a year ago. In South Dakota, tour scouts reported an average yield estimate of just 74.3 bushels per acre, down from 141.1 bushels a year ago.

Those are catastrophic numbers.

But farmers are not the only ones that have been impacted by the dry weather. A recent article by Chris Martenson summarized some of the other effects of this drought.....

Even though the mainstream media seems to have lost some interest in the drought, we should keep it front and center in our minds, as it has already led to sharply higher grain prices, increased gasoline costs (via the pass-through of higher ethanol costs), impeded oil and gas drilling activity in some areas (due to a lack of water), caused the shutdown of a few operating electricity plants, temporarily reduced red meat prices (but will also make them climb sharply later) as cattle are dumped in response to feed- and pasture-management concerns, and blocked and/or reduced shipping on the Mississippi River.

All this and there's also a strong chance that today's drought will negatively impact next year's Winter wheat harvest, unless a lot of rain starts falling soon.

Ranchers have had a particularly hard time during this drought. If you expect to pay about the same for meat this time next year as you are doing now you are going to be deeply disappointed. The following is from a recent Reuters article....

The worst drought to hit U.S. cropland in more than half a century could soon leave Americans reaching deeper into their pockets to fund a luxury that people in few other countries enjoy: affordable meat. 

Drought-decimated fields have pushed grain prices sky high, and the rising feed costs have prompted some livestock producers to liquidate their herds. This is expected to shrink the long-term U.S. supply of meat and force up prices at the meat counter.

All over the western United States pastures have been destroyed and there is not enough hay. It would be hard to overstate the damage that this nightmarish drought is doing to our ranchers....

I spoke with Caldwell [of Indiana horse rescue] and a number of other horse-rescue organizations around the country by telephone this week. The relentlessly hot dry weather, amplified in many areas by wildfire, has been devastating to farmers, ranchers and other horse owners. 

'Everybody is using their winter hay now. The pastures are destroyed and they probably won’t recover before winter,' said Caldwell. 'The price of hay has doubled, and the availability is down by 75 percent.' 

Caldwell is somewhat sanguine about his own lot, but not optimistic about what lies ahead. 

'Today the problem is not nearly as bad as it’s going to be,' he told me. 'It’s terribly bad today, but it is going to get a lot worse.'

But of course as I mentioned earlier this is not just an American problem.

The truth is that the entire globe is facing a rapidly growing food crisis.

According to the UN, the global price of food rose 6 percent in the month of July alone.

According to the World Bank, global food prices actually rose 10 percent during July.

Either figure is really, really bad.

The other day, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Food Program issued a joint statement in which they stated the following....

'We need to act urgently to make sure that these price shocks do not turn into a catastrophe hurting tens of millions over the coming months.'

If the price of food at our supermarkets suddenly went up 20 percent that would really stretch our family budgets here in the United States, but we would survive.

On the other side of the globe, such a price change can mean the difference between life and death. The following is from the CNN article mentioned above....

But step outside the developed world, and the price of food suddenly becomes the single most important fact of human economic life. In poor countries, people typically spend half their incomes on food -- and by 'food,' they mean first and foremost bread. 

When grain prices spiked in 2007-2008, bread riots shook 30 countries across the developing world, from Haiti to Bangladesh, according to the Financial Times. A drought in Russia in 2010 forced suspension of Russian grain exports that year and set in motion the so-called Arab spring.

Already, 18 million people in Niger, Mali, Chad, Mauritania and Senegal are dealing with very serious food shortages.

In Yemen, things are even worse....

Yemen has a catastrophic food crisis. Nearly half the population, 10 million people, does not have enough to eat. While 300,000 children are facing life threatening levels of malnutrition. 

The United Nations says Yemen is already in the throes of a disaster. 

'The levels are truly terrible. Whatever we do thousands upon thousands of children will die this year from malnutrition,' Unicef's man in Yemen, Geert Cappelaere, said. 

'In some areas child malnutrition is at 30%, to put it in context, an emergency is 15%. It is double that already.'

But this is just the beginning. These food shortages are going to spread and we will eventually see food riots that will absolutely dwarf the food riots of 2008.

Many scientists fear the worst. Some are even now warning that food shortages will become so severe that they will eventually force much of the globe on to a vegetarian diet....

Leading water scientists have issued one of the sternest warnings yet about global food supplies, saying that the world's population may have to switch almost completely to a vegetarian diet over the next 40 years to avoid catastrophic shortages. 

Humans derive about 20% of their protein from animal-based products now, but this may need to drop to just 5% to feed the extra 2 billion people expected to be alive by 2050, according to research by some of the world's leading water scientists. 

'There will not be enough water available on current croplands to produce food for the expected 9 billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in western nations,' the report by Malik Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said.

The days of very cheap meat are coming to an end. Meat will be increasingly viewed as a "luxury" around the globe from now on.

Sadly, there are some in the financial world that actually intend to make lots of money off of this crisis....

The United Nations, aid agencies and the British Government have lined up to attack the world's largest commodities trading company, Glencore, after it described the current global food crisis and soaring world prices as a 'good' business opportunity. 

With the US experiencing a rerun of the drought 'Dust Bowl' days of the 1930s and Russia suffering a similar food crisis that could see Vladimir Putin's government banning grain exports, the senior economist of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, Concepcion Calpe, told The Independent: 'Private companies like Glencore are playing a game that will make them enormous profits.'

Does that disturb you?

It should.

Driving up the price of food for starving people is not a good way to make money. Food is one of our most basic needs. When people are deprived of food they become very desperate.

Just look at what is already happening in Spain. The economic crisis in that country has just begun, and people are already looting supermarkets. You can see a video news report about Spanish activists looting 3 tons of food from local supermarkets right here.

Much of that food was donated to food banks, but in the future I am sure that the desperate "activists" will not be so generous when things get really tight.

In other areas of Spain, large numbers of people have been filmed digging through trash dumpsters for food.

Could you ever see yourself doing that? Don't be so sure that hunger will never come to America. Right now, a record 46.7 million Americans are on food stamps, and anti-hunger organizations all around the country are reporting more of a need than ever before.

For now the federal government is able to feed the tens of millions of Americans that do not have enough money for food, but what happens when a day comes when the federal government stops doing that?

And what happens if the drought in the United States continues throughout the winter and into next summer and Dust Bowl conditions return to the United States?

In a previous article entitled "17 Signs That You Better Start Preparing For A Nightmarish Global Food Crisis", I detailed some more of the reasons why people need to start preparing for food inflation and food shortages.

In the past we could always go out to the supermarket or to Wal-Mart and fill up our shopping carts with huge piles of very cheap food whenever we wanted to.

It will not always be that way.

Get prepared while you still can.

Meanwhile, many Americans continue to enjoy life as if nothing will ever change. For example, the "Rich Kids of Instagram" have been very busy showing off their wealth all summer long. You can see some of the ridiculous ways that they are blowing their wealth right here.

Sadly, they are just a product of our degenerating society. We have piled up wealth in these troubled times while the rest of the world has suffered.

But even our great wealth was not enough for us so we went out and borrowed trillions upon trillions of dollars. We have accumulated the greatest mountain of debt in the history of the world, but we are still not satisfied.

In the end, we will weep and howl in misery as everything that we have built falls apart around us.

Stanford, Cargill Et Al Behind Anti Organic Study

Anti-organic "study" is not news, rather, coordinated propaganda campaign.
by Tony Cartalucci 

September 5, 2012 - Harry Wallop of the London Telegraph ends his anti-organic food editorial with the following sentence: 

"Tomorrow, the baby is going to get an extra dollop of pesticide-sprayed carrots."
Whether or not Wallop is as brain-addled as he leads on to being, the point of his editorial is to encourage similar attitudes amongst the Telegraph's readership, attempting to manipulate public perception in the wake of a recent Stanford "study" regarding organic food. 

Whether or not readers of the Telegraph will put their own health and that of their children at risk for the sake of protecting big-agri's bottom line and the faltering paradigm that big-agri products are safe for human consumption simply because Harry Wallop thinks its good to feed his baby with pesticide-sprayed carrots remains to be seen. 

The London Telegraph, when not fabricating news to support England's latest imperial adventures overseas, is at the forefront of many of the largest corporate-financier funded lobbying campaigns. Recently, someone has splurged, and splurged big on anti-organic food lobbying built atop a suspect Stanford study. 

A Flawed "Study" 

When entire news cycles are dominated by headlines built on a single university study, with editorials attempting to hammer in big-agri talking points, a lobbying effort is clearly afoot.
Two news cycles have already been dedicated to trashing organic food. Organic food is free of pesticides and genetic manipulation, both of which are proven to cause learning disabilities, decreased IQ, sterility, and a myriad of other health problems including a wide variety of cancers. 

This most recent anti-organic food campaign began with a Stanford study (and here) out of its Center for Health Policy (a subsidiary of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies), examining the nutritional value of organic food versus non-organic. Food with pesticides on it had nearly the same nutritional value, the study claims, as organic food - completely skipping over the whole point of eating organic. 

Indeed, the nutritional value would be similar - but the entire point of eating organic is not because of vastly superior nutritional value, but to avoid the "extras" included with products from big-agri corporations. 

The Stanford study intentionally dismisses concerns regarding the presence of pesticides by simply claiming levels were within legal tolerances. No discussion was made on whether legal tolerances equated to safe tolerances, nor was there any mention made of the harmful effects of genetically modified organisms (GMO) or other controversial food additives found in non-organic food products. 

So why the strawman argument? 

A Corporate-funded "Study"
The Stanford Center for Health Policy states the following on its own website:
"The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) relies on support from its friends, as well as from national and international foundations and corporations, for the funding of the Institute's research, teaching and outreach activities." 

The Center for Health Policy is a subsidiary of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). So who are these "friends," national and international foundations and corporations funding the research of FSI and its subsidiary, the Stanford Center for Health Policy? 

Image: From Stanford Center for Health Policy's own website it is admitted that " national and international foundations and corporations" fund its research and "outreach activities." This confirms the suspicions of an increasingly aware public who saw the "study" as biased, contradictory of both logic and ethics, and the result of insidious corporate-funding.
....
According to FSI's 2011 Annual Report (page 38, .pdf) Agricultural giant Cargill, British Petroleum (BP), the Bill & Malinda Gates Foundation (heavily invested in both Cargill and big-agri giant Monsanto), the Ford Foundation, Google, Goldman Sachs, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and many other corporate-financier, Fortune 500 special interests. 

Image: From Stanford's 2011 FSI Annual Report (page 38, .pdf), of which the Center for Health Policy is a subsidiary, is funded by Cargill, the Bill & Malinda Gates Foundation (heavily invested in both Cargill and big-agri giant Monsanto), and a myriad of other Fortune 500 corporate-financier special interests. The report at face value is throwaway propaganda, but its funding reveals a more insidious, coordinated effort to manipulate public perception, stretching across academia, mass media, government, and big business. (click image to enlarge)
....
That none of this is mentioned, and the lack of independence and transparency involved in the study and its presentation to the public, overturns the credibility of both Stanford, and the Western media machine that so eagerly shoveled the results out to the public. Combined with the fact that the study itself is flawed, and the concerted, disingenuous nature with which it is being promoted to the public, a premeditated public relations campaign, bought and paid for by Stanford's FSI sponsors, most notably Cargill and the Bill & Malinda Gates Foundation is self-evident. 

What to Do? 

Quite obviously, one should continue eating organic. Additionally, the duplicitous nature exhibited by academia, the mass media, and the vast corporate interests overtly driving them both, demands from us to redouble our efforts at implementing full-spectrum boycotts aimed at big-agri as well as other Fortune 500 corporate-financier monopolies. This includes other processed food makers such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola, Kraft, and the myriad of subsidiaries they maintain. 

We should also redouble our efforts at supporting local farmers, attending and contributing to local farmers markets, and investigating the possibility of growing, if only a small percentage, our own herbs, fruits, and vegetables. 

Freedom and self-determination come from economic independence, self-reliance, and self-sufficiency. The most fundamental form of economic independence is having a safe, secure, and local food supply operated for, by, and of the people. 

Cementing this emerging paradigm, in spite of the crass, juvenile, even criminally irresponsible editorials like that of the Telegraph's Harry Wallop, and multimillion dollar "studies" subsidized by Cargill and the Bill & Malinda Gates Foundation, is the first step on extending this paradigm shift to other areas required for maintaining and advancing modern civilization. 

Update: Agricultural giant Cargill is in fact in direct partnership with Stanford University. Specifically, it has donated at least 5 million dollars for the creation of a Center on Food Security and the Environment (FSE). 

The center is allegedly "committed to helping feed a growing population while preserving the planet's natural resources." This will presumably be done through the use of patented Cargill biotechnology, have nothing to do with actually "helping feed" anything but Cargill's bottom line and corporate-financier domination of the global food supply, while Stanford simply leverages its reputation and credibility to give cover and badly needed legitimacy to Cargill's methods and agenda. 

Stanford's most recent "study" is essentially the university "giving back" to Cargill and others.
http://www.landdestroyer.blogspot.com/

Soy~ Destruction In The Name Of Progress

How Corn Syrup Made Americans FAT

Dees Illustration

High-fructose corn syrup, an extremely cheap, processed, and easily produced alternative to sugar, has been deemed ‘safe’ by the Food and Drug Administration since 1976. For decades, corn has been converted into high-fructose corn syrup for companies to use in their products at an extremely low cost, but it wasn’t so long ago that the dangers of this sugar alternative and food preservative have been recognized. Below you can view an infographic outlining the many dangers of high-fructose corn syrup, and how the production of corn syrup in general has made America FAT.

Presence of Corn and How There is So Much of It

Not many individuals would be surprised to hear that corn is the most widely planted cereal crop, with nearly 163 million hectares of land area being used for cultivation. Think the state of New York doubled in size for dedication to corn. And what do these corn fields output? 316 million metric tons were produced between 2011 and 2012 – nearly 6x that of wheat and 20x that of cotton.

Frighteningly, much of this corn isn’t even made to eat, as it actually isn’t edible.

The commodity is often produced with government backing for one primary reason – to be processed. The corn is simply a raw material meant to be transformed into the harmful ingredients we’ve come to consume so often today. It requires 3.2 pounds of corn to create 1 pound of high-fructose corns syrup. So it isn’t surprising that 25 million metric tons, about 8.2%, of corn was turned into HFCS between 2011-12, yielding 8 million metric tons of HFCS.

How is corn being produced at such alarming rates? Farmers aren’t alone when it comes to producing crops like corn, wheat, and soybeans – the government plays a large role. Between 1995 and 2010, the government put out $77.1 billion in subsidies for corn to be planted and grown. With corn being only 1 of the top 9 foods the government is paying for you to eat, 20 different subsidies are offered to farmers who grow corn, including:

• Direct Payments and Production Contracts
• Crop Insurance Premium Subsidies
• Price Support Payments (loan deficiency, marketing loan gains, and certificates)
• Counter-Cyclical Programs
• More on Corn in the Form of High-Fructose Corn Syrup

As mentioned, 8.2% of corn was transformed into high-fructose corn syrup between 2011-2012, yielding 8 million metric tons of HFCS. While the food preservative is great for companies and manufacturers, consumers are suffering from the widespread consumption of the sugar alternative, Often containing mercury, HFCS has been shown to cause liver and kidney damage, decrease insulin resistance, increase blood pressure, decrease amount of blood and oxygen transferred to muscles, sabotage learning abilities, and make people fat.

And the prevalence of high-fructose corn syrup in food seems tied to its production rate. In fact, the ingredient is so prevalent that the average American eats approximately 35 pounds of HFCS annually. While the American Heart Association recommends a maximum of 6 teaspoons of table sugar a day for a woman and 9 teaspoons for a man, the average American consumes 22 teaspoons of sugar a day – 10.4 teaspoons being comprised of HFCS. To put it in other words, 47 grams of HFCS are taken in each day on average. HFCS is commonly in:

• Processed Foods, ketchup, candy, cereal
• Canned fruits and vegetables
• Breads
• Soft Drinks
• Juices
• Beers
• Sweet-coating on pharmaceuticals
• Preserved Meats

Lastly, corn is almost always genetically modified, causing concern for both human health and negative impact on the environment. More than 85% of American corn crops were genetically modified in 2009, but that number has likely increased since that time. How exactly is the genetic modification of corn causing harm?

GMO foods have been shown to cause harm to animal and human health in numerous ways, with Monsanto’s Bt corn causing weight gain and organic disruption, as a single example.

GM corn requires more pesticides and herbicide use, especially that of Monsanto’s best selling herbicide Roundup. Pesticides and herbicides create resistant crops (calling for even more use,) have been tied to birth defects, and could be making you fat, among other things.

Insecticides modified in GM corn also pollute U.S. waters.

Corn requires more nitrogen fertilizer than any other crop, which creates dead zones – areas in water where virtually nothing can live due to lack of oxygen.

You can support this information by voting on Reddit HERE

Industrial Food Giants Raise Millions To Oppose Mandatory GMO Labeling

Note:   Read article by clicking subject line.   The battle is on, note the incredible donation from Mercola.

Vote with every $$$$ when you shop supermarkets.  It's estimated that 90% of "food" in supermarkets contain frankenfood, aka GMO.

Don't buy the garbage and even the giants will fall.

War On Home Gardens

A Canadian couple that has been growing a beautiful, meticulously-maintained front yard vegetable and herb garden has been ordered by city officials to uproot most of it by September 1 or else face lofty fines. CBC News and others are reporting that the town of Drummondville in Quebec is actually planning to ban all front yard gardens in the municipality beginning this fall; a move the spells the end of food self-sufficiency for many Canadians living in the area.

 









Michel Beauchamp and Josee Landry love to grow their own food. But the back yard of their well kept, Saint-Charles area home does not get enough natural sunlight throughout the day to grow the many varieties of fresh fare they have long enjoyed. So they asked their town's Environmental Services Inspector if it was permissible to grow food in their front yard, and they were given a verbal affirmative that this was not a problem.

"They used to have flowers growing, but Beauchamp has high blood pressure and wanted to eat healthier. So they planted cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchinis, beets, onions, and Brussels sprouts, among other vegetables," said CBC News about the garden. According to the same report, Beauchamp has lost an astounding 75 pounds since first planting the garden, and much of this is due to his having been able to grow and eat his own healthy food at home.

Drummondville changes its mind, betrays Beauchamp and his wife

But after the couple invested roughly $2,500 to install the garden, which is among the most tasteful and orderly front yard gardens that you will likely ever see, by the way (http://grist.org/list/city-officials-are-waging-a-war-on-gardens/), Drummondville officials turned on the couple and told them that they would have to remove most of their garden or else face a daily fine of up to $300 -- and the couple was given just seven days to comply with this demand.

According to city officials, every front yard garden in Drummondville has to contain at least 30 percent grass, a requirement that Beauchamp and his wife did not comply with when they installed the garden. It does not appear that the couple was ever even told about the requirement; as they had previously received approval to plant the garden as it currently is.

When Beauchamp and his wife challenged the city on the order, officials did not relent, but instead gave the couple a compliance extension, telling them that they had until September 1 to rip up part of their garden. The two are still fighting the city over the issue, though, and continue to try to convince officials to do away with the silly ordinance.

"It must be a right to be able to grow our own vegetables on our land," said Beauchamp to CBC News. "It is nonsense to ban it."

Meanwhile, Drummondville officials are moving forward with a new ordinance that will completely restrict front yard gardens altogether, no matter their size, which puts Beauchamp and his wife and many others out of the food self-sufficiency business. Since many back yards in the area are too small or do not receive the proper amounts of natural sunlight, many areas' residents will essentially be restricted from ever growing their own food unless they move.

Food oppression also escalating in the U.S.

Similar jack-booted oppression by local officials is taking place in the U.S. as well, including in Tulsa, Okla., where a woman recently had her entire front yard garden illegally bulldozed by city officials (http://www.naturalnews.com). Similar cases of home-grown food destruction have taken place in Georgia, Michigan, and New Jersey.

NOTE:   Vote with every dollar that you spend when you buy processed, dead food you are directly supporting the corporations that will eliminate your access for real food.  Kill the giant now, before it sickens you.

How Can GMO's Be So Bad? Dr Prescribed Non GMO Diets!

Are genetically modified (GM) foods making you sick – I mean really sick? Up until recently, all that we could say was thank goodness you’re not a lab rat; GM feed messes them up big time. GMOs (genetically modified organisms) appear to trigger the immune systems of both mice and rats as if they were under attack. In addition, the gastrointestinal system is adversely affected, animals age more quickly, and vital organs are damaged.

 When fed GM foods, lab animals can also become infertile, have smaller or sterile offspring, increased infant mortality, and even hair growing in their mouths. Have I got your attention?

Biotechnology corporations such as Monsanto try to distort or deny the evidence, sometimes pointing to their own studies that supposedly show no reactions. But when scientists such as French toxicologist G.E. Seralini re-­analyzed Monsanto’s raw data, it actually showed that the rats fed GM corn suffered from clear signs of toxicity – evidence that industry scientists skillfully overlooked.

Doctors Prescribe Non-GMO Diets; Remarkable Recoveries Result

Although there have been no human clinical trials, experts conclude that there is sufficient evidence from animal feeding studies to remove GMOs altogether. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) called for a moratorium in 2009 based on their review of the research. According to their former president, Dr. Robin Bernhoft, the Academy “recommends that all physicians should prescribe non-genetically modified food for all patients, and that we should educate all of our patients on the potential health dangers, and known health dangers of GMO food.”

Today, thousands of physicians and nutritionists do just that, and they report that a wide variety of health conditions improve after people make the change. Here’s some recent examples:
1) Trial consultant LaDonna Carlton, had to take two pills, three times a day to suppress the painful cramps and constant diarrhea associated with her irritable bowel syndrome.

 “My doctor told me I would be on this forever,” says LaDonna. But then she met a new doctor, internist Emily Lindner, MD. “The first thing she did,” says LaDonna, “was take me off GMOs,” including soy, corn, canola oil, and sugar. “Within two months,” she says, “I didn’t need the medication any longer.”

Since LaDonna stopped preparing foods with GMOs, her husband Fred was swept along with the new diet. And he’s glad he was. “I feel 10 times better,” he says. At 73, Fred plays full court basketball, even with two artificial knees. The new diet, he says, “made me feel much younger... I feel like I’m 50.”

2) Interior designer, Carol Salb, also recovered from irritable bowel syndrome, as well as cold hands and feet, thinning hair, allergies, and daily congestion. “I felt better in two and half weeks [after going GMO-free],” she says. That was six years ago and she’s still going strong.

3) We interviewed former school teacher Theresa Haerle on her 25th day on a GMO-free diet, and she had already shed more than 10 pounds. Even more remarkable was her recovery from 30 years of colitis – by the third day of her diet. In addition, her skin problems started to clear, she had more energy than she’d had in years, and it no longer hurt to get out of bed in the morning.

4) Kids are also recovering. One middle schooler changed his diet and no longer suffers from incapacitating migraines and asthma. Another recovered from horrible pain in his gut.
Although these patient interviews had been set up by physicians, at the Institute for Responsible Technology we’ve heard similar stories for a long time. Laurie lost 35 pounds in one year. Paul’s restless leg syndrome is gone – unless he accidentally eats a GMO. Many say their symptoms go away when visiting Europe, where food companies removed GMOs long ago due to consumer rejection.

Dr. Lindner says, “I tell my patients to avoid genetically modified foods because in my experience, with those foods there is more allergies and asthma,” as well as digestive issues such as gas, bloating, irritable bowel, colitis, and leaky gut. “And what emanates from that,” she says, “is everything. Lots of arthritis problems, autoimmune diseases, anxiety... neurological problems; anything that comes from an inspired immune system response.”

The speed of recovery varies, usually depending on the symptom. “When I change people from a GMO diet to a GMO-free diet,” she says, “I see results instantaneously in people who have foggy thinking and people who have gut symptoms like bloating, gas, irritation. In terms of allergies, it might take two to five days. In terms of depression, it starts to lift almost instantaneously. It takes from a day, to certainly within two weeks.” Full results usually take about four to six weeks. Dr. Lindner doesn’t just eliminate GMOs in her dietary regimen, but that, she says, is the most critical component.

People who switch to non-GMO diets often do so by buying organic foods – which are not allowed to use GMOs. This raises a critical point in the analysis. Were the health recoveries stemming from eliminating GMOs or from other co-factors such as the reduction in chemicals and increased nutrition found in organics?

 Similarly, since most GMOs in our diet are found in processed foods, some people reduced GMOs by cooking from scratch. So they simultaneously eliminate additives that may contribute to disorders. And for others, they may also eliminate food categories, such as gluten or dairy, based on a diagnosis. So what’s really causing these dramatic recoveries?

Similar Livestock Stories – Without The Co-factors

Fortunately, the experience of numerous veterinarians and farmers around the world gives us insight. When they take livestock off GMO soy or corn and substitute the non-GMO equivalent, they don’t have these pesky co-factors. The animals are not eating organic, there’s no change in nutrients or additives, and yet the results are still impressive.

When a Danish pig farmer switched to non-GMO soy in April 2011 for his 450 sows and their offspring, within two days the animals’ serious diarrhea problems virtually disappeared. During the following year, death from ulcers and bloat, which had claimed 36 pigs over the previous two years, vanished. Conception rate was up, litter size was up, diseases were down, and birth defects were eliminated.

An Iowa farmer saw immediate changes in his 3,000 pig nursery after switching to non-GMO corn last December. Not only is there a lower rate of disease and medical bills, he says, “Our pigs are happier and more playful.”

A feedlot operator with 5,000 head of cattle also switched to non-GMO corn and reported, “We’ve had a lot less pneumonia and health issues since that time.” Like the pig farmer, the behaviour changed noticeably. His “cattle have been a lot calmer.” Many farmers who were struggling with high rates of infertility and miscarriages in their livestock say they turned the situation around after switching to non-GMO feed.

Renowned veterinarian and author Michael W. Fox, whose syndicated column has reached tens of millions, says that when GMOs were introduced to the marketplace, cats and dogs started suffering from much higher rates of allergies, itching, and gastrointestinal problems. He now has a file drawer full of letters from happy pet owners confirming that his advice to switch the pets to non-GMO and organic feed cleared up the problem.

Repeating Symptoms: From Lab Rats to Consumers

What is striking about all these reports is the similarity of experiences. Many of the same categories of disorders identified in animal feeding studies by the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, (e.g. gastrointestinal, immune, and reproductive), also clear up in humans and livestock when they switch to a non-GMO diet. Moreover, these same problems are on the rise in the U.S. population since GMOs were introduced in 1996. Inflammatory bowel disease is up 40 percent. Multiple chronic illnesses nearly doubled in nine years. Food allergies, infertility, asthma, autoimmune diseases, etc., have accelerated among U.S. consumers, nearly all of whom eat GMOs without even knowing it.

Even autism rates may be impacted. When an autism specialist heard a scientist lecture about the behavioural, neurological, and physiological changes in mice, rats, and livestock fed GMOs, he told the speaker afterwards: “That’s exactly what we are finding in our autistic children.” Many parents report significant improvements in behaviour and gastrointestinal disorders in their autistic children, after they remove GMOs from the diet. (See resource list.)

How Could GMOs Be So Bad?

To understand how genetically engineered crops might contribute to so many serious disorders, it is helpful to understand a few details of the technology. GM crops have foreign genes inserted into their DNA, which is followed by cloning of those cells into plants.

1) Irrespective of which foreign gene is used, the very process of insertion and cloning causes massive collateral damage to the plants’ natural DNA. This has resulted, for example, in a new allergen in Monsanto’s GM corn and a huge allergen increase in their GM soy. Most of these types of unexpected side effects, which can add toxins or carcinogens to our meals, are never even screened for.

2) The GM crops on the market contain added genetic material from bacteria and viruses. These pieces of DNA, as well as the RNA and proteins they produce, have never before been part of the human diet; that can be a problem for the immune system. According to Martha Grout, MD, “Genetically modified foods create inflammation in the system.” Inflammation, in turn, can lead to a wide variety of diseases, including allergies, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, and heart disease. Dr. Emily Lindner likewise interprets the impact of GMOs as “an immune or inflammatory response” and treats it accordingly.

3) The gene inserted into certain GM corn and cotton varieties is designed to provoke a response – in insects that is. The gene produces a poison called Bt-toxin that kills certain bugs by breaking holes in their digestive tracts. In spite of assurances by the biotech industry to the contrary, a study published this year confirmed that the toxin also breaks holes in human cells. A Canadian study in 2011 found Bt-toxin from Monsanto’s corn circulating in the blood of 93 percent of the pregnant women tested, as well as in 80 percent of their unborn fetuses. Bt corn might therefore not only provoke an inflamed, leaky digestive tract, it might wreak havoc in our bloodstream, and in the delicate brains of infants whose blood brain barriers are not developed.

4) Three minor GM crops, papaya (grown in Hawaii and China exclusively), zucchini, and yellow crookneck squash, contain inserted virus genes designed to fend off disease. Eating these, however, may have the exact opposite effect on us. Viral genes can produce viral proteins, which as a class are well-known to suppress the body’s defences against viral infection. They can also be toxic.

5) The most widely used GMOs are called “herbicide tolerant,” including soy, corn, cotton, canola, sugar beets, and alfalfa. This trait allows farmers to spray Monsanto’s weed killer Roundup, for example, on their Roundup Ready crops without killing them. The genes inserted into these plants produce proteins with allergenic properties. Perhaps of greater concern is that the sprayed toxins are concentrated into the food portion of the plant and end up in our diet. Roundup is linked to cancer, Parkinson’s, birth defects, and endocrine disruption.

6) And now the bad news. The only human feeding study confirmed that part of the gene inserted into Roundup Ready soybeans can transfer into DNA of bacteria living inside our intestines. If the transferred genes continue to produce proteins (and there is evidence suggesting it does), then we may have allergens, viral proteins, or even Bt-toxin continuously manufactured within our own digestive tracts.

OK, The Good News

Fortunately, as people learn about the health dangers of GMOs, feel better from non-GMO diets, and tell others, the non-GMO movement grows. There are now millions who seek healthier non-GMO foods. Since GMOs offer no consumer benefits; and since the major food companies in North America have already removed GMOs from their European brands due to consumer rejection, any measurable drop in sales that is linked with growing anti-GMO sentiment here will likely trigger a rapid race to non-GMO status.

The tipping point threshold is likely to require only about five percent of consumers.
A critical vote in California this November may accelerate the non-GMO revolution. A measure requiring mandatory labeling of GMOs is on the ballot. If passed, we think food companies would rather avoid GMOs than admit they use them. Especially since 53 percent of Americans say they would choose the non-GMO brands once labels give them a clear choice.

I’ll bet that after learning about the evidence of health dangers, that percentage is likely to grow.

NOTE:  Vote with your $$$$$ every dollar you spend on processed foods is supporting the destruction of our access to real food.  There is nothing edible in supermarkets EXCEPT in the outside aisles.  If it's in a bag, box or plastic bag it no longer is living food.

White House Chef Claims Future Food Will Be All Chemicals Not Real Food

Every two years, a consortium of Europe's most active minds converges at the Euroscience Open Forum to discuss the latest advancements in scientific research and innovation. But this year's meeting, which was held in Dublin, Ireland, featured a disturbing workshop held by White House executive pastry chef Bill Yosses, who explained and demonstrated to audience members how the food of the future will not actually contain real food, but rather various combinations of lab-created chemicals that mimic food.

As reported on Six One News, a feature of RTE News in Ireland, Yosses and several other food experts showed a live audience how to create various foams, gels, solids, and other food-like textured substances out of chemicals that, when combined, resemble things like lemon souffle and chocolate pudding. These food scientists then shared samples of these laboratory creations with audience members, who were told that the imitation food products are the wave of the future.

"You take the (chemical) compounds and you make the dish," said Herve This of AgroParisTech, a science and research organization based in France, to RTE News in Ireland. "So you have no vegetables, no fruit, no meat, no fish, nothing except compounds. And you have to create a shape, a color, a taste, a freshness, a pungency, an astringency, everything," he added, likening traditional cooking methods such as "cracking eggs" and using real food ingredients to "living in the Middle Ages."

White House executive pastry chef Bill Yosses shares a similar sentiment, as he believes creating fake food out of chemicals will actually help improve the quality of cuisine and availability of food. He told Six One News that chefs can use the information he presented to gain a "(better) understanding of what they're doing and use that to improve the processes, to improve not only the flavor but the hygiene, the longevity, how to store things."

"All that comes about from understanding cooking on a really molecular level," he added, with sort of a twinkle in his eye. But when he was asked if these same chemical food experiments are used at the White House in meals served to the Obamas, Yosses laughed and said no, explaining that "the First Family is looking for traditional, sort of 'happy recipes' that people are familiar with."

You can watch the disturbing segment in its entirety at:
<a href=http://www.rte.ie/news/av/2012/0712/media-3342255.html>This Link</a>

While intended to specifically showcase some of the more offbeat scientific developments circulating the "technosphere" today, the Euroscience Open Forum, including the troubling seminar on chemical-based "foods of the future," is actually a troubling foreshadowing of what may soon come for Americans. Some scientists are apparently of the strong persuasion that man-made food items are preferable to natural foods, and the former is what they hope the public will eventually accept.

The average person, in other words, will eventually be expected to happily eat green gelatin-like blobs made of chemical compounds, along with ambiguous cracker products that resemble "Soylent Green," while the White House and the world's other elites continue to eat wholesome, natural foods, including those hand-picked from Michelle Obama's organic garden.

Wil Con-Gress Let Monsanto Write It's Own Laws?

Co-Authored by Colin O'Neil, Regulatory Policy Analyst at the Center for Food Safety

The agricultural biotech industry -- well, let's call it what it really is: the chemical industry -- has gone on the offensive as never before with a set of slippery policy riders to the House Farm Bill. It's a new low even for an industry that has spent years and tens of millions of lobbying dollars trying to dismantle the basic safeguards that stand between a regulated, healthy food supply and the profit margins chemical industry executives pine for. If passed, these riders would undermine the few laws that are currently in place to protect farmers' rights, our health and our environment from the many adverse impacts of genetically engineered (GE) crops.

Waking to the news this morning that the bill reported out of committee late last night with this suite of riders perfectly intact should give everyone interested in a safer, more secure food supply (and U.S. economy, for that matter) a definite chill, even during these incredibly hot July days. Why? Because one important question has become very real: Will Congress let the chemical industry write its own rules?

Deliberately buried in the House Agriculture Committee's voluminous discussion draft of the 2012 Farm Bill, these significant changes to the Plant Protection Act (PPA) -- one of the few statues that regulate GE crops -- will counter the gains that have been made to protect our food supply and the farmers who grow it. The provisions (Sections 10011, 10013 and 10014) would force the rushed commercialization of GE crops, create a backdoor approval for Dow's "Agent Orange" corn and eliminate any meaningful review of the impacts of these novel crops.

Science and time have shown that GE crops cause significant harm to agriculture and the environment. The overwhelming majority of these novel crops are engineered to be resistant to herbicides, such as Monsanto's Roundup, and have dramatically increased overall herbicide use by 382 million lbs. This spike has, in turn, caused an epidemic scourge of herbicide-resistant superweeds. And they have caused repeated transgenic contamination of non-biotech crop, costing farmers and businesses billions of dollars, as well as permanent contamination of the wild.

Federal courts have ruled for farmers, businesses and public interest plaintiffs numerous times, holding that USDA had violated federal law when approving GE crops by failing to adequately consider and regulate their harms. But rather than address these continued failures, the chemical industry's allies in Congress are trying to change the law via the Farm Bill. The logic being: if you can't win the game, change the rules.

These changes, if allowed to become law, would have numerous negative impacts and outlaw responsible governance. For example, one proposed rider would outlaw any review of GE crops' impacts under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and other environmental laws. This suite of "biotech riders" would have a devastating impact on our country's protection of endangered species. It would also outlaw review by any agency other than the USDA. As a result, the potential impacts of GE crops, including increased pesticide use, on endangered species and other wildlife would not be assessed by our expert wildlife agencies, allowing a GE crop approval to go forward, even if it would cause the extinction of a protected species. Such changes in regulation leave our protected wildlife populations in severe jeopardy and undermine the agencies working hard to ensure their survival. Instead, USDA would only be required to perform narrow, newly established cursory environmental analysis. It even goes so far as to prohibit the Department from using any funds to conduct any additional environmental analyses, even if a federal judge deems such analyses necessary.

To make matters worse, the proposed riders include several means for "backdoor" approvals of GE crops. One rider would allow potentially dangerous GE crops to be commercialized without necessary safety assessments by establishing deliberately impossible deadlines for USDA to meet. Under this provision, if USDA fails to review and approve a GE crop within the short agency deadline, an immediate "default" approval and commercialization would be granted. Thus commercialization of novel GE crops could occur without any agency analysis, let alone any approval, taking place. This new one-year deadline to approve or deny an application (with an optional 180-day extension) will put unreasonable pressure on the Department and will undoubtedly impact its willingness to even attempt rigorous risk assessments.

It's no secret -- our federal agencies are underfunded and already swamped with the important task of reviewing and assessing new industry products, including GE crops. To suggest that approval of new crops that are resistant to toxic pesticides -- like 2,4-D and Dicamba -- should occur "automatically," without a thorough environmental and economic analysis, is absurd. It flies in the face of farmers' basic rights to grow their crop of choice, be protected from transgenic contamination and not be subjected to chemical drift from the use of ever-increasingly higher levels of toxic herbicides.

But it doesn't stop there. The riders also open up a proposed second backdoor approval opportunity for GE crops that have gone through an initial public comment period and are currently under review by the USDA. Under this condition, if USDA is unable to approve or deny a crop application within 90 days of the Farm Bill passage, then the crop would be deemed approved. That's right. If USDA can't get through the process on schedule -- a schedule created to make sure they won't -- then all the safeguards come down and a new GE crop enters the public sphere without a regulatory roadblock in its way.

And if that doesn't sound serious enough for you, consider the fact that one of the crops that this could apply to is Dow's 2,4-D corn. Some know it better as "Agent Orange" corn, a GE crop engineered to withstand exposure to one of the chemicals in the infamous Vietnam-era herbicide. There's no doubt about it, the deadlines would be impossible to meet given the volume of public and scientific comments the Department receives (the agency received over 350,000 on the proposed Dow corn approval alone) and the number of applications currently being considered.

Conventional (non-biotech) and organic farmers, as well as grain handlers, grain millers and processors have already suffered substantial economic losses in the past due to transgenic contamination from GE crops. If these proposed provisions become law, the Secretary of Agriculture may be unable to prevent costly contamination episodes, like Starlink corn or Liberty Link rice, which result in market rejection, loss of foreign and domestic markets and untold millions of dollars in lost revenue to farmers and the food industry.

But the chemical interests thought of that, too. They've inserted a rider that would compel USDA to establish an extremely controversial national policy for the "low-level presence" of GE material in crops, setting for the first time an acceptable level of GE contamination in non-GE crops in the U.S. The disassociation of the chemical industry's priorities from reality is almost inexplicable. Consumer demand for GE-free foods is higher than ever, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Any policy that intentionally allows for GE material in crops and does nothing to prevent contamination of conventional and organic crops poses serious and irreversible economic harm to thousands of farmers, handlers, food processors and manufacturers. And beyond that, this illogical and unreasonable policy would severely impact the capability to export U.S. agricultural products to vital foreign markets that have restrictions on GE material in food.

American agriculture is at a crossroads. The mere fact that these riders are actually under discussion in today's House Agriculture Committee Farm Bill mark-up session is a testament to the changed reality we are facing. Far from moving closer to a safer, healthier and better regulated food supply, we're all witness to an attempted shift away from those principles -- delivering our regulatory and decision-making powers over U.S. agriculture into the hands of industry. It's a scary scenario.

So, will Congress let the chemical industry write its own rules? For the sake of all American farmers, consumers and the environment, let's hope the House Agriculture Committee and other members of Congress will see the true intent of these riders and strike them from the Farm Bill before more damage is done.

Governments War On Small Farms

USDA Greenlights Utterly Toxic GMO Corn For You To Gobble Up

You've got to keep an eye on US regulatory agencies in the second half of December. That's when watchdog journalists like me tend to take time off—and regulators like to sneak gifts to the industries they're supposed to be regulating. This year, I was alert enough to detect this gift from the FDA to the meat industry; but the USDA caught me napping. The agency made two momentous announcements on GMO crops, neither of which got much media scrutiny. It deregulated Monsanto's so-called drought-tolerant corn, and it prepared to deregulate Dow's corn engineered to withstand the herbicides 2,4-D and dicamba. More on the later this week.

The drought-tolerant corn decision, which came down on Dec. 21, was momentous occasion, because it marked the first deregulation of a GMO crop with a "complex" trait. What I mean by that is, the other GMOs on the market have simple, one-gene traits: a gene that confers resistance to a particular herbicide, like Monsanto's Roundup Ready seed or a gene that expresses the toxic-to-bugs properties of the bacteria Bt, as in Monsanto's Bt seed. But a plant's use of water is a complex process involving several genes; there's no single "drought tolerant" gene. Generating such traits in plants that succeed in field conditions has been considerably more tricky for the agrichemical giants than than simple traits.

And indeed, Monsanto has staked huge PR capital on its ability to do just that. In a famous 2008 press release, the company declared it would "double yield in its three core crops of corn, soybeans and cotton by 2030, compared to a base year of 2000," using patented seeds that will simultaneously "reduce by one-third the amount of key resources required to grow crops." It placed complex traits like drought tolerance at the center of its effort, promising seeds that would "result in more production per unit of land, and reduced use of energy, fertilizer and water per unit produced."

The drought-tolerant corn the USDA signed off on in December is the first approved crop of that kind. The trouble is, it doesn't work very well. The USDA acknowledged as much in its Nov. 11 Final Environmental Assessment of the crop. It makes clear that the product's "drought tolerance" extends only to "moderate" drought conditions, and it has the same "minimum water requirements" as conventional corn.

And then it drops this bombshell, citing Monsanto's own field tests: "It is prudent to acknowledge that the reduced yield-loss phenotype of MON 87360 does not exceed the natural variation observed in regionally-adapted varieties of conventional corn (representing different genetic backgrounds)." Translation: In areas of the US corn belt where drought is a factor, conventional breeders have already developed varieties that do just as well under moderate-drought conditions as Monsanto's genetically altered product.

It added that these non-GMO varieties are "readily available," and will remain so once Monsanto's product is sold commercially. There are two things to say about this. The first is, it means that Monsanto's novel product offers precisely nothing to farmers that isn't already available to them—and without the need to pay a hefty GMO licensing fee. The second thing that comes to mind is that Monsanto's dominance of the corn seed and trait market could mean that those "readily available" conventional varieties might not be readily available for very long once the company starts distributing its new seed. Already, there are areas in the corn belt in which farmers say they can't buy non-Bt corn. Could Monsanto do the same thing with its drought-tolerant corn?

Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists' Food and Environment Program who has a paper forthcoming on the industry's vexed efforts to make breakthroughs in drought tolerance, told me that it was "very possible" that Monsanto could use its market muscle to push big commodity farmers in the corn belt to use the company's unnecessary product. "They could even use it as a loss leader, sell it at cost or even a loss, and then reap the PR benefits of a having a drought-tolerant product used on millions of acres."

So even though Monsanto's first complex-trait product is essentially a failure, it could still manage to ram it down farmers throats, and then be able to boast that it has its first super-seed out in the field. Meanwhile, the fact remains that the agrichemical industry still hasn't produced a complex-trait product that works any better than conventional breeding.

And it's not clear that the industry will ever succeed on this front, except in PR terms. Take another complex trait the industry has been promising for years: making plants more efficient in their use of nitrogen fertilizer. Stanford biologist Peter Vitousek put it to me like this in an interview for an article two years ago: "Plants have been evolving for millions of years. I doubt that [GMO] plant breeders will be able to hit upon anything for nutrient utilization that nature already hasn't tried."

In 2009, Gurian-Sherman published a paper showing that the industry had yet to generate a successful nitrogen-efficient crop after a decade of research, even as traditional plant breeders had continued to make gains. More than two years later, Gurian-Sherman's analysis still holds.

NOTE: Isn't it clear by now that the dominant society and their corporations intend to remove the availability of fresh, unadulterated real food. Imagine America where only synthetic, toxic garbage is available to eat, unless you grow it yourself, as long as they allow that to conflict with their profit schemes. While there is a choice, it is critical to vote with every dollar that you spend by NOT supporting anything with GMO.

This won't be easy, because almost every packaged foods, including many natural ones contain GMO ingredients. Isn't your health worth it?