Good morning, my name is Buzz Hofford. I’m speaking as a Trustee for PCC Natural Markets, a certified organic chain of nine stores here in the Puget Sound area and the largest consumer – owned natural foods co-op in the country. In addition to representing 47,000 active members, we also serve more than 100,000 customers a week.

As leaders of Salmon Nation, we ask you to revise your previous recommendations for organic aquaculture, prohibit certification of carnivorous, migratory species and limit certification to closed, land-based systems with vegetarian diets. Read Full Article »

Posted in Opinion/Editorial

Yahoo News
Karen W. Wyman

COMMENTARY | Findings from a recent study are making a case for organic meat. According to a study in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, up to 50 percent of supermarket meat is contaminated with drug-resistant bacteria.

The study’s authors report that bacteria found inside the meat means the problem is the food animals themselves and not contamination from packing or processing. Many of the detected strains were drug resistant, suggesting that “densely stocked industrial farms, where food animals are steadily fed low doses of antibiotics” are heavy contributors to the global problem of antibiotic resistance. Read Full Article »

Posted in Opinion/Editorial

The New York Times, Opinionator
By MARK BITTMAN

In the scheme of things, saving the 38 billion bucks that Congress seems poised to agree upon is not a big deal. A big deal is saving a trillion bucks. And we could do that by preventing disease instead of treating it.

For the first time in history, lifestyle diseases like diabetes, heart disease, some cancers and others kill more people than communicable ones. Treating these diseases — and futile attempts to “cure” them — costs a fortune, more than one-seventh of our GDP.

But they’re preventable, and you prevent them the same way you cause them: lifestyle. A sane diet, along with exercise, meditation and intangibles like love prevent and even reverse disease. A sane diet alone would save us hundreds of billions of dollars and maybe more. Read Full Article »

Posted in Opinion/Editorial

Huffington Post
By Laurie David

      [It's worth noting that antibiotics are prohibited in the production of organic food.]

The next time you’re feeling sick, think twice before going to your doctor for answers. Look down at your plate, instead.

Hidden in your hamburger or smoked ham may be something you didn’t want or expect on the menu — antibiotic-resistant superbugs. Instead of protecting you from infectious diseases, antibiotics might simply be making you sick.

Just last month, the FDA confirmed that 80 percentof all antibiotics used in the U.S. go to animal agriculture. No joke, 80 percent! This is true insanity and scientists fear that this extreme overuse of antibiotics is putting our children, elderly and families at serious risk. Read Full Article »

Posted in Opinion/Editorial

Tony T. Azevedo,
WODPA President

If you are interested in eating, you should know what you are putting in your mouth. The “powers that be” finally won their battle in Washington DC allowing Round Up Ready alfalfa seed to be used. What is Round Up Ready? Round Up Ready is a Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) that is immune to the Round Up herbicide. Which means that our cows, that give us our beef, milk, cheese and hundreds of other products, can have a full diet of “Round Up Ready” feed. And, if you believe “you are what you eat” at what point does this affect you, the consumer?

Our USDA Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, who approved the Round Up Ready alfalfa seed, did it after our new congress took him to the woodshed. He held it if off the market as long as he could. Don’t you think you have a right to know if you are eating GMO? Read Full Article »

Posted in Opinion/Editorial