[Note: Don’t panic, go organic! This additive is not allowed in organic foods.] The asthma drug-like growth additive has enjoyed stealth use in the US food supply for a decade despite being widely banned overseas. AlterNet By By Martha Rosenberg Have you ever heard of ractopamine? Neither have most US food consumers though it is … Read more »
Search Results for: GMO
Full and Fair Farm Bill NOW
The Rural Coalition The undersigned 243 groups from all parts of the country have joined together today to demand that Congress develop and pass a full and fair Farm Bill this summer, without further delay. A full and fair Farm Bill must include farm, food and nutrition, conservation and rural economic development programs and commodity… Read more »
Organic: Food Justice for the 99%
Dr. Oz in Time Magazine Slandering Families Who Choose Safe, Organic Food for Their Children — Off-Base/Ill Advised As Americans become increasingly aware of the story behind conventional foods—the ecologically destructive monoculture fields, the petrochemical fertilizers, the toxic pesticides and dangerous fumigants—the agrochemical industry has launched an all-out media offensive against the booming organic industry…. Read more »
What Drugs Was Your Thanksgiving Turkey On?
Antibiotics and other drugs are common in the turkey that thousands of Americans eat every day. AlterNet / By Martha Rosenberg So far, 2011 has not been a great year for turkey producers. In May, an article in Clinical Infectious Diseases reported that half of U.S. meat from major grocery chains–turkey, beef, chicken and pork–harbors… Read more »
Poverty puts Chester into a food desert
Philadelphia Inquirer By Alfred Lubrano One in an occasional series. Eyeing a potato at Frederick Douglass Christian School in Chester one day in the fall, a first grader called it a “tomato.” Another said he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen one before. “How do you spell ‘nasty?’ ” asked Ja’Niyah Van, 6, tasting a baked… Read more »
China Faces a New Worry: Heavy Metals in the Food
Studies Warn of Produce Grown in ‘Hot Spot’ Soil; Pingyang’s Ill Farmers Wall Street Journal By Nicholas Zamiska and Jane Spencer NANNING, China — For nearly two decades, Lai Mandai regularly ate and sold beans, cabbage and watermelons grown on a plot of land a short walk from a lead smelting plant in her village…. Read more »
Amber Fields of Bland
The New York Times By Dan Barber Tarrytown, N.Y. THERE’S invariably something risky, if not risible, about allowing Congress to decide what’s for dinner. Bad decisions about agriculture have defined government policy for the last century; 70 percent of our nation’s farms have been lost to bankruptcy or consolidation, creating an agricultural economy that looks… Read more »
Eight Ways Monsanto Fails at Sustainable Agriculture
Union of Concerned Scientists Monsanto Company is the dominant player in commercial genetically engineered (GE) crops, the biggest seed company in the world, and—to hear them tell it—a leader and innovator in sustainable agriculture. Monsanto aggressively touts its technology as vital to achieving laudable goals such as ensuring adequate food production, responding to the challenge… Read more »
Is There Such a Thing as Agro-Imperialism?
New York Times By ANDREW RICE Dr. Robert Zeigler, an eminent American botanist, flew to Saudi Arabia in March for a series of high-level discussions about the future of the kingdom’s food supply. Saudi leaders were frightened: heavily dependent on imports, they had seen the price of rice and wheat, their dietary staples, fluctuate violently… Read more »
E. Coli Path Shows Flaws in Beef Inspection
New York Times By MICHAEL MOSS Stephanie Smith, a children’s dance instructor, thought she had a stomach virus. The aches and cramping were tolerable that first day, and she finished her classes. Then her diarrhea turned bloody. Her kidneys shut down. Seizures knocked her unconscious. The convulsions grew so relentless that doctors had to put… Read more »
