Organic food standards are the firewall protecting us from chemicals and mutant foods. Of course, the standards are under sustained attack, and this week was no exception.
Why bother with organic food? Even the Bushies can’t hide the answer.
In 2005, the National Academy of Sciences, EPA, USDA, and FDA together concluded:
- ….children receive 50% of their lifetime cancer risks in the first two years of life.
- According to [the] FDA, half of produce currently tested in grocery stores contains measurable residues of pesticides. Laboratory tests of eight industry-leader baby foods reveal the presence of 16 pesticides, including three carcinogens.
- In blood samples of children aged 2 to 4, concentrations of pesticide residues are six times higher in children eating conventionally farmed fruits and vegetables compared with those eating organic food.
- According to [the] Dept. of Health and Human Services, organophosphate pesticides (OP) are now found in the blood of 95% of Americans tested. OP levels are twice as high in blood samples taken from children than in adults. Exposure to OPs is linked to hyperactivity, behavior disorders, learning disabilities, developmental delays and motor dysfunction. OPs account for half of the insecticides used in the U.S.
- The CDC reports that one of the main sources of pesticide exposure for U.S. children comes from the food they eat.
So everyone wants healthy food free of pesticides and genetic experiments, right?
Everyone except Big Industrial Food, Big Ag, and Big AgChem (aka Big Bug Spray).
The USDA defines “organic” food in the US. The USDA organic standards specifically protect us against toxic substances (herbicides, pesticides, fungicides) spread over our foods as well as protecting against foods that are themselves toxic (genetically engineered/modified foods – aka GMOs). Current US organic standards largely forbid pesticides and wholly forbid GMOs.
The megacorps that bring us toxic hog farms, toxic junk food, and deadly harvests want to "help" the USDA by defining down "organic" standards to include all manner of toxic crap.
This week’s example of the USDA trashing organic standards
When you buy organic foods, you expect organic ingredients, right?
Silly consumer.
Last week the USDA unveiled their new “standards” for 39 food materials. Amazingly enough, all 39 proposed “standards” simply declare chemicals or chemically grown foodsstuffs can now be hidden in foods labelled “organic”. The comment period ended Tuesday, May 22.
Big Industrial Food (and their colleagues temporarily on detail as Bushie political appointees at USDA) have been chewing this over for years. The Bushies at USDA generously gave the public seven days of comment (instead of the usual 30 or 45) on the latest loopholes Big Ag and Big Bug Spray found for our tables.
Big Ag and Big Bug Spray have entered their “Harry Potter” phase. They want the USDA to magically declare:
- Chemically grown rice magically produces organic rice starch
- Chemically grown hops magically make organic beer.
- Chemical cheese from chemically raised milk magically contains organic whey protein
- Chemical fish raised in pens and fed nothing but artificial food pellets and antibiotics will – when passed through industrial grinders – magically produce organic fish oil.
Big Ag and Big Bug Spray believe in magic. Who knew?
Hey, maybe they just couldn’t admit it while Falwell was around.
(Photo of Chinese factory by Ariana Lindquist for The New York Times, via Goldy)
Related posts:
- What’s Organic about Organic?
- FDL Book Salon Welcomes David Kessler, The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite
- FDL Movie Night Welcomes Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin, Good Food
- Participation in School Meal Programs to Reach 41-Year High
- Chamber of Commerce Want Ad: “Need Economist to Write Study Trashing Health Care Reform”
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Not one thing healthy about this administration, is there?
zed?
Hey! It’s Kirk Murphy! Awsome.
yo kirk!
love you and your information
always
thanks
Hey Kirk!! How coool!
Why does absolutely everything these people do piss me off??? Remain calm….relax the body, the mind will follow…relax the body, the mind will follow….
Doctor Kirk Murphy on the front page!
What a great debut.
Disgusting, of course…but what is to be done? An important question when dealing with an administration that demands executive branch(read: corporate) control of every decision and offers precious few options for getting a word in edgewise.
Thanks, folks. Welcome!
And thanks to Jane for giving us this opportunity to meet our eats.
ps – I’m blushing.
We’ve been eating organic produce and antibiotic free meats for a few years now. If I have to eat something out of a regular store it’s a chore to get it down. We’re going to have to keep track of which producers still adhere to the old standards as I know some of them aren’t too happy about this either. Thanks for the heads up.
The weather along Galveston Bay sucks today. Rain, rain and more rain.
I just love the taste of milk containing bovine growth hormone…
Nicely done, Dr. M.
just want to add – i think GMO’s are a real problem to our ecosystem – as well as our food.
p.s. great to see kirk on the front page!
Kirk James Murphy, M.D. @ 9
Can we pressure our Congresscritters to hold hearings on the shortened comment period and the magical thinking of government scientists? This needs real exposure to sunlight.
TeddySanFran @ 14
i fixed it for you teddy.
Welcome Dr. Murphy!
So will the next level of certification be Organic Organic as opposed to just garden-variety (no pun intended) Organic?
Will wonders never cease.
It is like the current rage to put on boxes “0 Grams Trans Fat,” and when you read the ingredients, it includes Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, which is the usual suspect when it come to trans fats.
foods that are themselves toxic (genetically engineered/modified foods – aka GMOs).
GM foods (as a class) != toxic. Suggesting otherwise tends to undermine your credibility.
Chemical fish raised in pens and fed nothing but artificial food pellets and antibiotics will – when passed through industrial grinders – magically produce organic fish oil.
WTF are “chemical fish”? Aside from that ominous term, I can’t see anything wrong with this particular clasification.
kirk for world bank!
yeah, i submitted a comment to the usda.
organic is becoming a general brand rather than a standard.
Is this subject appropriate for this blog? *s*
Seriously though, is Congress the final step or are we to late this round?
Well, now I don’t feel like such a CA princess for shopping organic in my breeding years. As usual, those with sufficient funds and transportation to find the good food are fine, but all those stuck with whatever the local store has, they get to poison their kids.
Impeachment isn’t nearly enough.
Thanks Dr. Murphy! Was in Trader Joe’s buying organics today. New ChimpCo-inspired shopping ethos: So what’s in a label?
____________________
selise – new favorite LF show from the archive:
Auditorium Theatre in Rochester, NY, 10_18_’75. Great show and best audio quality I’ve heard yet.
Excellent Post, Dr. Kirk, another sorry episode of the ‘Fox guarding the Hen House’ as can be expected from this Maladministration!!! Haven’t they also gutted the whole USDA inspection processes? Of course ADM/et.al. want a slice of the Organic Pie, so magically change the standards!!! What a travesty!!!
TeddySanFran @ 13
Teddy, I sure hope so.
Waxman is trying, but the Executive Branch is – of course – stalling on behalf of the megacorps.
Petioning the House to build detention facilities in the Capitol for those held in Contempt of COngress may help to speed compliance :)
PS -sorry for delay. on dial up
I had a dream last night…A Dictator boy King…all the departments seeded by the King’s minions….Monsanto controlling our food…neocons controlling foreign policy….Blackwater protecting our “Homeland”…
Oh, thank God THAT was a nightmare…
BigPoison has clearly realized that “organix” is a brand they can sell to Mr and Mrs American Consumer regardless of the content, or origin, of the product. I do not understand why my government allows this corruption of my foodstuffs to occur.
I suppose I’m even more likely to be on a no-fly list, having commented earlier this week at Kirk’s urging on the USDA site.
hmmm – those who can afford to eat organically will be able to find products – i always request my local supermarket to increase the availability of organic products in store – slowly they are… but i find i have to drive to find all that i choose to but… hopefully access to organic products will become even more accessible to those of us in the inner cities..
newtonusr @ 21
thank you (i really appreciate your dl tips)! but, i’m gonna need to figure out how to convert the shorten files… (for this one, and a previous rec you gave me). haven’t done that yet.
Thanks for this, Kirk. I’m with Marcy right now and as two people who have battled cancer and have to be careful about this stuff, it’s very alarming.
Thank you so much for taking on this issue. I don’t have the time to read and be too much a part of the discussion, but will return later this evening. Everyone who knows me knows that I don’t tolerate “bad” food – either poorly made, poorly sourced or poorly grown and all that that entails. The de Plume family eats well and healthily. It is one of my values that I “force” onto to others.
i am a middlestream kinda gal.
i live in an area on the outskirts of suburbia, in fact, it’s quite wholesome here……things all about natural are available.
i heard screaming ‘nuts’ profound about our food sources about ten years ago, around here, i pooh-poohed them.after all, they were nuts.
now, not so much.
i go back to visit family and friends, in the city, and they’re shopping organically, what is available in the grocery store, they have no organic farmer’s market that i took for granted. it’s scary. that’s their only food source. what’s at the store.
a soy farmer friend warned me about limited seeds 15 years ago, he was right on it, he is a farmer, layed it all out on monsanto and such.
i was blind.
face it, there are impositions happening as we speak. way more ponderous than what we can envision. i was not paying attention.
i am now.
what we are eating is poisonous to us.
i was complacent, i’m not anymore……….
and just for good measure-
did anyone write the fda about the massive influx of bacterial infection anti-virals that are now being injected into to livestock? fda approved.
no?
causes us to no longer be neutral when infected………..wish i could find the link. i’m on dial-up.
thanks again kirk, my hero shrink. for more than one reason.
LS @ 24
Then, you woke up, and realized it had occurred while America snoozed…
Senate-varmint of the Day Award to the clod who put a hold on a resolution honoring Rachel Carson on the occasion of her 100th birthday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/200…..arson_dc_1
We started our first organic garden with our first house/baby. My darling husband brought home garbage cans of horse poop to make our compost richer, purloined bags of raked leaves, and turned the pile until it smelled like heaven. Guess we need to take the tractor to the suburbs where our first grand-baby is now being expected, and plow them a plot.
McWyrm @ 16
Love your handle, McWyrm
I’m not certain I follow your first point, but if the meaning is that GM foods as a class are all known to be toxic, my inner scientist isn’t quite there.
However, the precautionary principle tells us to test for safety before we put the new mutant in our dinners or the new chemical in our bodies.
The toxicity results with GM foods are so calamitous that I am teating all GMO foods as toxic unless demonstrated otherwise.
At the moment, orgaic certification is the only way I know to do that.
As for “chemical fish” – that’s my shorthand for farmed fish. Unlike bivlalves (mussles and oysters), fish did not evolve to sit in one place in large groups. Farmed fish are given antibiotics and fed artifical foods (the ornage in farmed salmon is from a dye)
Antibiotics and dyes. Hence the name chemical fish.
CTuttle @ 31
Yeah. The ones snoozing on Ambien that the little fake butterfly brings them…
Bravo, Kirk, great first post!!
For those of you who are interested in following organic foods more closely, may I recommend Organic Consumers Association?
For more info on the safety of your water supply, may I also recommend Clean Water Action?
I’ve been a financial contributor to both organizations for quite some time, am very happy with their work as watchdogs.
And now I can get even more watchdoggery from Kirk!! (Jeepers, does this mean you’re moving up to capital K Kirk from little k kirk?)
This is a huge topic in the organic farmers world, and has been since the gov first began talking about standarizing the word ‘organic’. Many knew this day would come, so far we’ve beaten back attempts to dramatically weaken the standard. (Shortening the comment period is a key, how swarmy of them.) Many farmers opted out of being certified, many more want to take back the concept and start a new grassroots certifying system like ’sustainably grown’ or ‘naturally grown’. Unfortunately, most farmers are too busy to get political enough… BTW, Sen Coburn intervened to block a bill honoring Rachel Carson on the upcoming 100th anniversary of her death.
Hi y’all.
We buy some organic stuff and some not. The cheese is 4 x more expensive, which is a problem. And my cousin likes junk food, and i have never seen organic m&m’s (for me).
BUT we do buy organic milk and most of the vegetables.
To your health:
US rejects all proposals on climate change
The US has rejected any prospect of a deal on climate change at the G8 summit in Germany next month, according to a leaked document.
soyinkafan @ 19
Soyinkafan, ya done good.
Organic eating can be much more affordable we assume.
Organic processed foods are often way overpriced, but organic staples are dirt cheap.
That $3.00 box of rice pilaf on the shelf is worth about 30 cents.
Local health food stores have all manner of organic spices, grains, and what not in stock.
Those too far from their nearest health food store can mail order.
And some folks are eating organic on a food stamp budget.
Rayne – I am a member of both groups as well. I buy organic at my local grocery store, just to encourage them to keep it up. Most of my groceries come from either Whole Foods or the local farmers’ market, although with local farmers you have to be mighty careful. Some are even more chemically minded than big ag. I try to get to know the people who carry what I want and get to know their farming methods.
One of the bloggers at youthinkleft wrote about this also:
Bug spray?
We used to have tons of fireflies here. Not so anymore. And where are the frogs and toads? Spray and runoff.
kirk -
what is your knowledge (or intuition) about all the kids who are being diagnosed with ADD or ADHD (if i have the acronyms right)?
could there be a causal link?
selise @ 27
Incredibly easy to convert.
–D’Load and install “Shorten“, and add it to your dock.
–Once the “shn” files are completely D’Loaded, grab them all in a bunch and drag them to the “Shorten” dock icon.
–It will prompt you to save them to someplace – I use the desktop. Shorten will notify you when it’s done.
–Locate all the resulting files (wav’s, aif’s, etc) and drag them directly to iTunes where thay can be played, converted to mp3’s, burned, etc.
For those of you who are interested in following organic foods more closely, may I recommend Organic Consumers Association?
For more info on the safety of your water supply, may I also recommend Clean Water Action?
I’d also recommend the Pesticide Action Network for political information.
Army worms are attacking our winter wheat in Oklahoma this year, like never before. Solution: more spray.
janine @ 36
I had to look Rachel Carson up, per wiki
LS@34, I thought butterflies were harmless… Dr Kirk, in my science edumacation, I was taught that one atom’s addition and/or subtraction from a string, radically alters the outcome of the entirety(i.e. Drugs)!!! Similarly, altering genes can cause unintended results, hence, we need to be ‘veery, veery, cahful!’ In the immortal words of Elmer Fudd!!!
CTuttle @ 21
Thanks CTuttle. (blushing)
Ever since Upton Sinclair and THe Jungle, the USDA inspected meat and poultry full-time at each facility (although Reagan and Bush I had defunded these efforts).
The Bushies inverted the inspection program, taking us back to pre-Upton Sinclair days.
Now industry “voluntarily inspects” our food.
Meat and poultry used to be cut up by your local butcher. False market economies bring us “cheaper” meat by centralizing slaugherhouses and meatpacking in the same facility.
So, a pice of chicken shit or cow shit that before would have ended up in one butchers’ shop can now be efficiently distributedover thousands of food packages.
Bon appetit!
newtonusr @ 44
small quick question..would shorten de-flac a show I already have, thus allowing me to place and play in itunes?
sorry for the ot.
Within the organic food world there is a problem with definitions. One of the major organic dairy co-op/producers is fighting to have the standards lowered on what makes a happy organic cow. The problem is the time that cows are supposed to be outside in the pasture. In nasty climates that can be a problem, but as I understand it high volume producers who want to take advantage of the higher organic milk prices are trying to get into the act and are trying to revise downward the pasturing requirement. Also eggs – producers who advertised non-caged hens make me shiver because I have seen pictures of the non-caged hens crammed into big barns with no room to even turn around. I try to buy my eggs at the feed store where the eggs come from little old ladies who sell their excess for “egg money.” I know those hens are well treated and healthy.
again BIG AG overrules us…toxic foods are reasonable so folks will buy them particularly if there’s a large family involved. it’d be nice if the local farmers markets would be able to accept “family first” cards – but i guess that’d be too much to ask
newtonusr @ 44 –
thank you!!!
janine @ 45
You sound like you know about organics – are you a farmer?
Dr. Murphy,
This is what I love about the lake all bases are covered. I am worried about this being a foodphobe. What are we to do?
lolo
selise @ 42
Yes. This is why the assualt on reason is so deadly.
In an evolutionary sense, we are the descendents of invertebrates – worm kin.
Evolution is thrifty – the same neurotransmitters we use are still used by our very distant insect relatives.
As our brains develop in the first few years out the womb, new neural pathways are lais down in time-specific sequences. Vanishly small amounts of “signal chemicals” (either pesticides, hormone mimics, or other toxins) at concentrations found in the environment have been shown to disrup the orderly function of these pathways.
Boy brains require an extra developmental step beyond girl brains, and hence will more easily show the results of disruption.
lolo @ 55
I thought you just like racing for the zeds?
Can I quote you and say that a doctor told me this????
SnarKassandra @ 58
I am awaiting further explanation myself, trying to figure out which way this worm is going to turn. ;-)
i am so pissed, and i don’t use that language, have been trying to find my bookmark, and did a goodle and fda search for the soon to be passed fda regulation of administering anti=biotics to cows that would affect us humans………can’t find it………
fda is approving drugs to be used on cattle that would make certain virals harder to fight in us humans. by eating them.
they are made more immune, we are made less immune.
sorry i can’t find a link,but is very important……..fda has left open hearings for letters to be written, but sounded like it was passing this summer………..can’t find it on their website. like they make it easy to find their hearings. sheesh.
kirk do you know about this, is a big deal, really………..and i’m not a sounder offer, but this one hit me home. can’t find it anywhere. shit.
Rayne and janine, thaks so much for those resources – good folks all.
And janine, so great to have a real farmer’s perspective here – what else do you think is important for us to know?
Kirk James Murphy, M.D. @ 56 –
thank you!
so we assault our ability to reason with our media, poltical environment, culture and now our food too?
i hadn’t heard this… (but neural dev is not my gig)… someday (when/if you have a chance), i’d love a reference (for my “inner scientist” *g*).
This is nuts:
38 million to hit the road this weekend.
CALABASAS, Calif. — Like many holiday travelers, Ron Evenhaim isn’t going to let rising gasoline prices curtail his plans for a weekend getaway.
Evenhaim rented a 40-foot diesel RV to take his family of five on the 300-mile round trip from his home in suburban Los Angeles to Lake Isabella in the Tehachapi Mountains.
“That’s 30 gallons,” he said, using the vehicle’s average mileage of 8 to 10 mpg.
selise @ 62
I need a reference so I can tease my cousin!
Schumer says that there may be sixty votes for the “gonzo is an asshole” bill- in which case
Gonzo will be treated to a badly needed hosing.
dmac – So cows get health care while we are poisoned without health care?
dmac @ 60 -
i remember that too. will go link searching… i think i know where it is.
i for one am leery of buying milk from the big ag companies that put out “organic dairy” products – i only purchase dairy from stores that carry products in my nearby area. i was surprised to find ther’s quite a few in my metro area
Kirk James Murphy, M.D. @ 56
This really hits home, my son is BP1 w/ADHD, I wouldn’t necessarily attribute it to his diet, but, it certainly raises red flags…
Your informative post appears on Saturday, 26 May. The USDA’s dramatically truncated 7-day public response period ended last Tuesday, 22 May.
Way to go.
In Clusterfuck’s brain, the insect parts have taken over–cockroach brain
Per CNN TV, Five US troops killed in Iraq today.
Another big risk is that the Big Bug Spray sell goods to the rest of the world that are banned in the old USA.
30 Yrs ago I watched a Greek farmer spreading by hand a white powder under his olive trees. He was reaching into a 20 plus pound paper bag and scooping up the powder with his bare hands and shaking it on the ground under his trees. Now, it could be something very innocent such as lime or other mineral but who knew?
The average millage each item in an average grocery store has traveled in between 1300-1500 miles. Think of that…..
dmac @ 60
found it! i remembered that we discussed it at fdl when it was in the news.
here’s the link.
hope that’s the one you were looking for.
oh, and kirk, payed attention to your organic on a food stamp budget site a while back, and it helped me, thanks…………
dmac – I am not a complete vegetarian, but I refuse to feed my family meat that has been chemically treated. That means that the only meat I buy in the local supermarket is rib and soup bones for my dogs. We don’t eat meat every day because veggies and fruits and beans and grains are much yummier and more intersting for the most part. I rarely eat meat when I eat out because of this. I can taste the difference. Once at that famous steakhouse in Amarillo I was forced to order one of their steaks as my meal. (Long Story) I took one bite and I could taste the feedlot! It was all I could do to stay at the table after that.
Dr. Kirk, what a wonderful surprise to find your post on the front page. Excellent post!
Thomas Huxley @ 70
And Dr. Murphy has been discussing this and many other important issues here in the comments for many moons.
Wonder what this fellow has been eating? Maybe we should all just quit reading this post and go to livegreenfootballs or something. /grr
dmac, I didn’t know about specific use of antivirals in catttle.
Unfortunately, this is not a surprise. Antivirals are just one form of antibiotic. Cattle are ruminants that evolved to eat low calorie foods, hence they evoloved to be dispersed (daytimes) in low density.
Putting thousands of cattle in
feed lotsshit lots simply creates giant petri dishes for animal disease. As a result, over 80% of antibiotics (antivirals, antifungals, antibacterials) used the US go into industrial animal ag.And when I worked in high tech medicine (transplantation and stem cell transplant) every year antibiotics which once worked would fail as the resistance moves out of the feedlots, throught the food chain, and into our patients.
Some of whom died for want of antibiotics to treat the resistant bacteria they carried.
For this reason, the question of how “organic” animals are raised really matters. The OCA have very timely info here.
Eureka Springs @ 50
Shorten won’t decode or convert “.flac’s”. I use Toast – great batch and exporting. But there’s a simpler and free ( i think it’s free) way – xAct. D’load & install, drag “.flac” files to it, select an export format (wav or aif) and select a destination, and go. Drag the results into iTunes and convert to mp3 or AAC, etc. It’s a little trouble, but…
OK, now I really do have to run. Thanks again, doc, for posting this. Eat well, everyone!
Thomas Huxley @ 70
What? Well, why didn’t you say so if you knew that?
katymine @ 72
katymine, great point!
we export agents too toxic for even our USDA/FDA to permit…
and then bring them home on essentially uninspected produce and almost wholly uninspected ingredients.
Kirk, I was introduced to healthy, natural, organic foods when I moved up to the Santa Cruz mountains. The quality in what I get up here vs what I was getting at the supermarket over the hill in the Bay Area, not to mention how much better it tastes, convinced me. Yes, it costs a wee bit more which does matter when on a fixed income, but I am worth it.
thanks Dr. Murphy,
staggering post
I feel for all you FirePups!!! We have a very robust and productive Farmer’s Market(s), Island wide, and we’re the home of the second largest ranch, Parker Ranch(King’s Ranch is King), which is a completely ‘free-range’ producer of beef, sadly, the vast majority is sent to Japan!!! Ironically, we still receive the vast majority of our foodstuffs by Barge!!! :P
and don’t forget that samonella spinach (conventionally grown, not organic) was traced to run-off from nearby feedlots.
tain’t the way we farmed when i was a wee lass.
glad my daughter is adamant about feeding my 3-yr old grandson organic and healthy food. He’s bright, articulate, amazing attention span, think it’s a lot to do with how he’s fed. Makes my heart ache for all the little ones who don’t have vigilant parents/grandparents
GREAT post.
Suzanne @ 83
Suzanne, there is interesting data on the steady depletion of our soils and crops through chemical ag.
(and I can’t find the link)
Over the decades of Industrial Ag in post WWII AMerica, the mineral and nutrient quality of our food crops has declined.
In Britian, test plots maintained in traditonal (non chemical) ag produce food with a far higher nutrient content than that from identical crops reared via Industrial (chemical) ag.
We are what eat. And plants are what they eat – soil.
kirk – i hope you will follow up on this issue and help us understand how we can make a difference…. i appreciated your heads up in the comments thread last(?) week to sign the petition.
Suzanne @ 76
What, no splash??? *g*
selise at 74
YESSSSSSSSSSS!
i am on dial-up so at a disadvantage……..
that’s it, everyone, PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE, read that article.
selise at 74, read it.
and write the fda, if it’s not too late, i did.
thanks ((((selise)))) would have bugged me if i couldn’t find it, so appropriate for the post. wake up people, what you think you are eating you are not, i hate to say it that way, but i found it is true……people told me for years, i pooh-poohed their apocolypse thinking……..but i have been proved wrong, through many years of curiousity and research i have learned, they are right……our food sources are important and need to be sourced and documented. and supported.
and i live in a place where i can find local organic seasonal foods easily……..i don’t live daily in a scare place………but when i go to the city, i wonder what can happen in a minute if those sources were no longer available to me.
thanks kirk, for forever bringing an important subject up for discussion and having to face the reality of where our food really comes from, and to stop it before the local sources die out.
Something I didn’t know until the other day. CO is being used to keep meat we buy in the stores red and fresh looking.
Hi Kirk,
I’m so passionate about this issue that I’m embarrassed to write about it. I have a tiny farm just outside the big city in a suburb with good schools. Sometimes I feel so alone. We’ve got hundreds, maybe thousands of seedlings to get into the ground this weekend and people think we’re weird.
But there’s good news. I stopped at a farmers’ market today, talked a little Kingsolver, and was told that more and more women are into farming. I just loved this woman’s attitude.
She made me feel like I was a part of a movement to take back our health.
LS @ 81
The deadline really was frustrating. I’m so grateful that folks on the Lake tolerated my near daily reminders about this last weekend.
newtonusr – Thanks so much. I will give it a try and probably order toast soon. this is also a great show.. check it out sometime.
Eureka Springs @ 78
Now, now, no need to get snippy. Just pointing out an inconsistency. And LGF is a place I just don’t go.
Maybe it was the Oscar Meyer hotdog I had for lunch.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 92
CO?
CT, not wearing my mod cap today. The dive is for when I am moderating.
Suzanne @ 98
Do you wear a diving cap and a mod cap at the same time?
Suzanne @ 97
Oops, merely a leisurely Dip, eh? Did you catch the ‘Vlog’ with Howie??? Awesome, I hope it becomes a habit!!!
SnarKassandra @ 96
Carbon Monoxide!!!
We have a cow/calf operation and if you are looking for organic beef, the best thing to do is go visit, ask when the calves are going to be marketed, and see if you can get a calf (approx. 550-700#s) delivered to a local slaughterhouse/butcher for processing. The average meat to HHO (head, hide, & offal) is 60%
The usual procedure around here is for two families to split a calf, pay the going price per pound live weight as found on line (but with no commission) to the rancher, and pay the slaughter/butcher fee to them for packaging to suit each family. Usually the price for the slaughter is the HHO, and the butchering/packaging charge is about $.15 @ #.
One thing to note, pasture raised cattle have yellow fat, not white. It’s the natural result of eating grass, not concentrate.
Today, I picked my first ever handful of skinny French beans from seeds I planted!! The only thing that could have polluted them was if my Old English Mastiff pee’d on them, but I don’t believe he did, because the plants are still alive. I also for the first time in many, many, many years have yellow squash blooms. I grow flowers, but I’ve been lousy at vegetables. After this post, I’m going to plant a bunch more. Tomorrow, I’m going to buy tomato(sp) (damn you Quayle) plants and try to plant them upside down. I am inspired. There used to be a little old lady down the road who used to grow all kinds of great veggies that she put on her veggie stand with a box that you would just leave the money in, but me thinks she is no more.
Kirk, I hope you realized my comment at 81 was not directed at you..:}
TexasEllen@101, We have the ability to go into Quarters of Beef, and, likewise with swine!!! Most butchers here only charge 10 cents/lb, to cut and wrap!!!
Oklahoma kiddo @ 91
Also pre packaged fresh veggies (like the salad mixed greens) in any air tight bag as well as meats..
Kirk! Good to see you up top!
Yet another reason to love my little veggie garden in the back yard.
Your comments about children under the age of two ties in with the Baby Food Brigade in the Maternity-Industrial Complex. When our little one was born, we bought a small, simple little food grinder. Put food in one end, attach the little grinding wheel, turn the crank, and you’ve got instant baby food — with complete control of what goes into it.
Corporate producers respond to corporate pressures. If you shop for produce at a conventional grocery store, talk to your produce people there. They are often delighted that folks are interested in what is available, and take what is said to heart. “Oh, gosh, I’d love to buy more produce here — it’s convenient — but I am distressed that I can’t find more here that’s appropriately farmed. Between the fertilizers and the pesticides, I tend to go with folks who can vouch for their farming methods and meet real standards.”
If enough people a day have conversations like this, it will get back to corporate headquarters.
Kirk James Murphy, M.D. @ 61
Thank you, Dr. Murphy, for a great post. I came to farming quite by fate, not by family. When my son was 4 he was diagnosed with cancer around the same time 16 other children were in a small ag community. Culprit ended up being a chemical no longer allowed that was soaked into the soil to kill nematodes and seeped into the water supply, still there decades later. One thing led to another and the more I learned meant the more important it was for me to turn my hobby into a full time commitment… Milk is considered the ‘gateway drug’ into organics. Knowing where your food comes from is critical and will shape your decisions, the OCA site Rayne listed has more than you will ever want to know about produce, meat, milk, eggs. I always suggest people start with the deadly dozen (you’ll find it on the OCA site as well), especially folks with weakened immune systems or pregnant or have young children. If you do not have a farmers market that only allows local, organically grown food (many allow conventional and re-sellers – ask!) CSA’s are a great alternative.
I feel like we’ve gone back to hunting and gathering. The food search makes me very tire. I certainly don’t believe corporate farms even when they say “organic”. It is summer so I have a few months ahead of me to shop at the organic farmers market. After that I go through six scary months.
Here is one of my practices now that quality control is not required in our food supply. I return a lot to my supermarket. They have to take it back and refund me. If we did that to the big chains they would be forced to stocking what we demand. All it takes is 2% of customers to not purchase lettuce and the price must come down or the supplier changed. The truth is the consumer rules.
CTuttle @ 101
They pick veggies before they are ripe and have gas in the trucks that ship them nationwide that cause them to ripen on the way to the supermarkets according to a chef I know. I wonder what kind of gas that is?
We don’t castrate our bull calves. The practice of cutting off balls and poking hormones into ears always hit us as expensive, painful, and dumb. If they are slaughtered before puberty, they are tender.
Sorry for the repetitive question..but does congress have a roll to play in this or are they off the hook?
No worries, LS!
Hey folks – sorry to be away (browser craashed)
Boston1775, good on you for going to the farmers’ market.
Half of all Americans live with 30 miles of a farmers’ market.
Also, CSA (community supported agriculture) is another way city folks can have enjoy safe produce. In CSA, city folks subscribe to a farm, and the farm brings the city folks lovely bounteous boxes of whatever’s fresh that week.
Yum.
ls at 103
Quote This Comment
time marches on, and we replace the things of which we hold value. carry on so to speak……..she would like that.
Why can’t we know that stuff like BSE in our milk?
Mr. President, why can’t the marketplace decide in this?
Interesting, an old timer horse trainer/farmer I once knew used to joke that someone who was hyper had “ate some fast”. How prophetic (I don’t even think the term “fast food” existed at the time). I just thought it was funny at the time.
Eureka Springs @ 111
They most certainly have a role to play, scrutinize the actions/inaction of USDA/FDA, question the decisions rendered, you know, what they were elected to do; OverSight!!!
What a great post–and so important.
This is an issue near and dear to my heart, for environmental and economic reasons as well as healthwise.
One of the most powerful things you can do is to–whenever possible–buy locally produced food. Most small farmers, even those who don’t fit into the federal definition of “organic,” use methods which do not leave a toxic footprint. Buying locally also preserves farmland and open space. It keeps your hard earned dollars from going into the bank accounts of big agri-business. And it tastes much better and fresher.
For more on this, I can’t recomend Michael Pollin’s The Omnivore’s Dilemna highly enough.
dmac 114, You are right, I should try.
Eureka Springs @ 95
no seeders. :(
and i hope everyone will write to the fda—see selise’s post at 74 -
immunizations for animals that will hurt us is not ok. they don’t need them if the animals are farmed in a manner that is humane.it’s a sledgehammer for a hammer’s job kinda thing. not necessary and will harm us in the long run………and i’m not a go gettum kinda person, but on this i am. fda, hearings, speak out………sorry i don’t have the link. find it. fda……….fight it.
FYI, new thread
lmao selise… I am just learning all the new lingo…with high speed this week..) save that linky…it’s a great show.. I had it on tape for a long time..wore the tape out.
Eureka Springs @ 112
ES, this is a great question. Sorry for a bit of feline distraction on my end.
Waxman is trying to get the FDA to cough up info and now subpoenas are likely.
Industrial Food and Industrial AG have very deep roots in the Congress (the Senate over-represents agrarian areas). I expect USDA to be every bit as recalcitrant than FDA, and for the same reason – oversight is inimical to industry maximizing profits.
USDA reports to the AG committee, and they were co-opted by industry long ago. (Don’t get me started on Farm Bill subsidies. At least not tonight).
Given the revolving industry door at USDA, Waxman is my hope on this. I’ve no idea if the recent “public comment” farce is on the radar screen for Waxman – sure hope it is.
Eureka Springs @ 95
New stuff – Thanks!
Checking it out as we type.
Looks like a beauty – and a torrent guy…
questions about this decoding stuff to
n e w t o n u s r
at
a o l
dot
com
Alice Waters, the founder/chef of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, took this battle to the schools in Berkeley.
Yes, it’s Berkeley — but if an urban school can make healthy food an integral part of lunch, the classroom, and student’s lives, it’s possible anywhere.
ls at 119
you already are, enjoy it, she did.
dmac @ 121
I remember a documentary (maybe 20 years ago) about chickens kept in very tightly confined quarters. They kept the lights on 24/7, they fed them antibiotics, and the birds developed all kinds of tumors that they just cut out or threw out and sold the chickens in “parts”.
The pharmaceutical companies often sell vaccines developed for humans that don’t sell or don’t pass the FDA for humans and market them to the vets. Same deal with the antibiotics. Many breeders drink pharmaceutical koolaid too.
Boston1775 @ 93
Hi Boston1775 – you are! There was a women’s farming conference in Vermont this past year ~ did you go? I’m on the west coast, too far to travel. I sympathize with your dirty hands, knees & sore back, planting weekend here too. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Eureka Springs @ 122 –
it’s bookmarked. thank you!
Green onions, no pesticides.
selise @ 120
I’m gonna leave a machine up and see if seeders come online. Will advise.
BTW, very funny, very cool “Willin’” on the Rochester concert. I love the chatter about the old days with the “Mothers of Invention”!
Slothrop @ 130
I knew it!!
Kirk, thanks for a great post and thread.
Elliott @ 115
Oh Elliot – that is such a great question. Industry saw ths coming long before even the enviros. Back in 1982 (?) the OECD came up with “substantial equivalence“. Like “risk-benefit analysis”, SE is is a non-academic exercise in learned obfuscation. Those most proficient in either ruse are rewarded with positions (within or without academia) richly funded by industry.
Anyone who thinks the OECD gave a flying jump about our health probably can’t find their computer.
Quayle pushed this non-scientific assertion throught US regulatory agencies, leaving us defenseless against the intorduction of GMOs.
Exactly what the OECD wanted.
Substantial equivalence is a religious faith proferred by acolytes for Monsanto (makers of rBGH).
SE states GMOs are the same as natural organisms because SE assumes they are.
And potato is spelled with an “e”.
Slothrop @ 130
Man, who doesn’t love YouTube? Nice get!
Thank Kirk! Really great to see you up top!
newtonusr – Will download and try xACT.. may write with a question or two if I cannot figure this out.. I am an old boot collector, finally able to download from the net!
If I do… mail will be from eurekaspringer
I CAN’T BELIEVE I MISSED DR. MURPHY’s DEBUT !!!
bravo bravo Kirk – again at the lake, the cream rises to the top
and jacked right over the center field fence – hope you come back and see all the info and resources now available to all of us as a result of your thoughtful post :)
Thanks to all for contrinbuting your resources, questions, and experiences.
Toghether, we can reshape US farming so it serves the people, not the megacorps. This sort of exchange is one of the best ways I know to do that.
And thanks to the commenters here who have so kindly welcomed me to the Lake’s front page.
(and to all who’ve stoically endured my 1,000 word mega “comments” cluttering up various threads).
South Orange County Democrat @ 1
In the great gyre of life, even they could one day serve as compost.
Other than that, zilch.
janine @ 128
Hey Janine,
Glad for kindred spirits. I didn’t know about the women’s farming conference, but I am going to go looking. It will do me a world of good. Thanks for reaching across this great big country.
Every time I think I am just a neurotic, foodphobic old biddy something like this comes along. I care for my 3 grandchildren while their parents work, and feed them as organically as I can (as I did their parents). These babies have one chance to get a healthy start. Organic food is no guarantee of perfect health and long life, but it makes sense to me to do the best I can to control all of our exposures to things that have no place in or near any human body.
I shop at our local coop for just about everything, but especially meat and dairy products. Also, I try to buy the organic products marked as local – if something is not in season (like tomatoes) I do without (mostly; sometimes I cave). The argument about cost really annoys me. What my neighbors save by buying disgusting supermarket meat, they spend on junky snacks. Their kids are snacking all the time (and dropping litter all over the neighborhood), and it makes me furious. If they want snacks at my house, they can have cinnamon toast or popcorn (not microwaved, of course). If they are thirsty, they can drink milk or water. I do buy refrigerator cinnamon rolls occasionally and make chocolate chip cookies, but I figure once in a while (as opposed to every day) a little junk won’t hurt.
The funny thing is, that when everyone in the neighborhood has “it” – the cootie du jour – my kids and I usually don’t.
Kirk,
Thanks for the post. This is one of my favorite subjects. I hope this is the first of many from our doctor of the lake. Maybe sometime you could write about nutrasw**t and spl*nda. So so happy to see you on the front page!
lolo
Lovely afternoon in the northwest where we picked up some organic greens to supplement the garden and some healthy tomato, cuke, cayenne, green & red pepper plants. All from the local farmers mkt. Whoa, these corp. entities just want ya from the cradle to the grave. Limited libility my arse! A headless entity which seems insatiable, devouring it’s own. Well, back to the sorbet from last years strawberries w/ choc. syrup(org). Eeew, I’m just reaminded its time for the spring cleanse. You might regularly change the oil in the vehicle, but shouldn’t we clean the blood and organs? ‘Dr. Schultz’ is one method used by some. Time again to do the nasty! Kirk, hope your a regular, these positive steps go a long ways. Peace out.
dreamcatcher @ 16
Dreamcatcher, good catch on the gaming Big Junk Food does with our food labels.
People shouldn’t have to have taken two years of college chemistry to understand what they are eating.
Great question about the next level of certificatin. Empirically, many small farmers here in CA no longer pay for the formal certification required to claim “organic” on the their label, but still follow organic practices.
As industrial farming muscles into the organic sector, I’ll be getting more and more produce from small farmers who follow organic practices, but can’t pay to subsidize organic certification programs as they are extended to Industrial Food and Ag.
I thought I should throw this in to the mix. Anyone heard about the guy that wrote about deconstructing the twinkie?
http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/203199
LS – Bless you!
Love the Twinkie deconstruction – and couldn’t find a link. Thanks.
(CBC interviewed the teacher on As It Happens. Priceless.)
For those awaiting links on delayed CNS maturation in males, thanks for your patience. Plenty of text books, but no linkies (yet).
The LA Times has a great article this week about the “maturation window” of increased susceptibility to toxins during our first few years after conception.
Thank you, Dr. Murphy, for an important post, and also for giving me an opportunity to post the following. Just as I was wondering how I might work Paul Newman into a conversation here, you go and post something about organic food! Whoa!
According to ABC’s Nightline, Paul Newman is announcing his retirement from acting. Instead, he will act out his passion for food by creating a restaurant in Westport, Conn, using only organic food – Dressing Room: A Homegrown Restaurant.
In celebration of a legend, take a few minutes to swoon over Paul Newman’s Eyes.
juslin @ 52
juslin – just saw your comment.
Many farmers markets here in CA accept WIC and Food Stamps, and farmers at Santa Monica’s (very well-established) Arizona St. markets were discussing how to do cards when I was last there.
The cards are a real puzzle. As part of the War on the Poor, electronic cards for public benefits demand precision and accuracy at the risk of criminal sanctions. The usual farmer’s stall practice of rounding down to the nearest dime or quarter “misrepresents” pricing – but if the farmers charge precisely to the benefit cards, yet keep the same practices with everyone else, they may be discriminating against Federal beneficiaries.
Precisely charging for every weighed item and toting up all the cents – and making change – is realllly slow. At peak hours the Arizona St. markets are already clogged to maximal safe densities….
A card-swipe terminal for each farmer would be ruinously expensive (no mains electricity or landlines available). A “check-out” station for dozens of farmers over four blocks doesn’t work: supermarkets have walls for a reason.
You are raising a realy good point. I’d sure love to see someone on the Lake come up with the answer.
(no snark intended. I sure haven’t imagined the solution, so my hat’s off to the first woman – or advanced guy :) – who can)
While most of this seemed to make pretty good sense, this unsupported (and, I suspect, insupportable) statement leaped out at me:
Surprising that someone trained in science (i.e., as an M.D.) would make such an obviously controversial claim, but provide no supporting documentation.
Doc?
gary1 @ 149
Surprising that someone trained in science (i.e., as an M.D.) would make such an obviously controversial claim, but provide no supporting documentation.
Doc?
Thanks for your question, gary1.
GMO corn, soy, and potatoes show toxic effects on living animals.
Hope this helps and these links help. And I hope I don’t seem rude in being so rushed, but just caught your question before other tasks call.
Happy to discuss more in the future – thanks again for your question.
This is more than just this administration’s problem. When it comes to low costs, corporations will of course take the bait. And with the money they ’save’ it goes to buying congress so they don’t create laws which would punish their profits. Both aisles are filled with sellouts. Sellouts to big media, software, oil, auto industry, China, agriculture, security, industry, pharmaceuticals, and yes, pesticides..
Can we do something about political contributions? Ethics comittees are always busting congress members because they are profitting from these contributions. Even if they do not directly profit, it is certainly fun to go to political parties, conventions, and meetings, where it is a $500 or $1000 per head event.
It’s seeming as if congress are the gate keepers to economic progress in this country. You don’t pay, you don’t stay.
Bravo for writing this and showing us the statisitcs. If I didn’t spend all my spare time rescuing abandoned animals I would take up this cause. I have been ranting about it for 25 years and now I will use your statistics when I rant… thanks.
What a magnificent posting to greet the day (with). Anything written under the marque kirk murphy was guaranteed good stuff, now there is a new/improved marque to recognise, adaptations. But then, almost all commentators have that quality at fdl with rare exception. Thanks for such informative and essential sharing of information.
The gas used to ripen produce iirc is ethylene which is an organic hormone found in ripening bananas (for instance).
Good God, I had no idea of these level of poisoning we are doing to ourselves.
Thanks for this post.
Eat veggies and fruit from Round Valley, (Covelo) California, they have had a ban on spraying in their valley for decades, and Gerbers purchases the pear from their orchards for baby food.
I always wondered why I felt so “fresh” eating and breathing up in that mountain valley, now I know.
Man, scary stuff.
Kirk James Murphy, M.D. @ 33
Wow. Thanks for the thoughtful response. I agree that GM food presents potential risks that should be throughly investigated, though I tend to find that a great deal of anti-GM rhetoric tends to veer dangerously close to xenophobic hysteria. I’m happy to see that your stance is more substantive.
My questions re:chemical fish were sincere. Thanks for the details.
hmm MD doesn’t mean intelligent nor factual. GMOs are NOT toxic food. You may not want them, but stop using misinformation to argue your point. Well not toxic to humans, but I assume you’re not arguing against toxicity to insects!
and in fact the ORGANIC industry has vigourously fought to retain the use of copper pesticides and antibiotics in plant agriculture. In the US, organic fruit growers are the single largest consumers of both copper and antibiotics, both of which have genuine environmental toxicity problems!
swissffun, perhaps you have had not had the opportunity to review the links in 150 and the toxicity described therein.
after review of the links and referenced studies, please do feel free to share with us the results of studies (NOT funded / designed by industry) in peer-reviewed journals which replicate the cited studies and fail to demonstrate toxicity.
I thank you for your dedicication to the scientific method, and await the results of your good faith research into these matters.