The landscape of health has changed. No longer are our families
guaranteed a healthy livelihood, not in the face of the current rates
of cancer, diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer's and allergies. In the words of Elizabeth Warren,
Harvard University law professor who is head of the Congressional
Oversight Panel, "We need a new model," and we need a new food system.
It's our health on the line.
8 Steps Obama Could Take to Save Food:
KANSAS CITY - The rapid adoption by U.S. farmers of genetically engineered corn, soybeans and cotton has promoted increased use of pesticides, an epidemic of herbicide-resistant weeds and more chemical residues in foods, according to a report issued Tuesday by health and environmental protection groups.
The groups said research showed that herbicide use grew by 383 million pounds from 1996 to 2008, with 46 percent of the total increase occurring in 2007 and 2008.
Why is conventional agriculture so wound up? Are they afraid of organic
agriculture? What's all the fuss about? After all, a recent study by the Lieberman Research Group showed that organic food sales account for only 3.5% of all food product sales in the US.
A year after America voted for the change-agent they saw in Barack
Obama, advocates hoping for deep improvements in our food system can
point to only a few successes, while other policies that could lead to
food insecurity are brewing in back rooms.
Nearly two years ago, candidate Obama said the following in a speech at the Iowa Farmer's Union:
If and when health care reform finally passes, we will have
successfully ameliorated only half of the crisis. The treatment half.
The next step has to be focused upon doing something about the poisoned
filth we've collectively nicknamed "food." Without any real changes in
how our food is produced, the health care system will continue to bloat
and fall apart. Not unlike the insides of an average American body.
Whether it's the surplus chicken from a factory farm snuck into your kids meal in the form of chicken nuggets or the cheese made from hormone-laden milk made acceptable on WIC food lists, it's really no secret: the role of the USDA's Food Distribution Programs (FDPs) since the Great Depression has been to get rid of surplus agricultural commodities by passing them on to those who need nutritional foods the most.
Autumn has arrived in the Northeast. The leaves are turning colors, the days are getting shorter, and the weather has a hint of the chill to come. It's a time of change in many ways. Our nation is grappling with the daunting challenges of health care and global warming. Another change is coming as well. It's called the good food revolution. By bringing locally grown, organic, nutritiously rich food to a table near you, the good food revolution can help us tackle these larger societal issues, and benefit us all.
Food is essential to our survival.
It impacts our health and wellbeing. It has the power to bring people
together.
Food can be manipulated in many ways,
from cooking to processing to using it as fuel. It provides tremendous
opportunities to create value, and, as such, food is big business.
Much of the food we eat starts as a
simple seed, or one that has been genetically manipulated to achieve
some desired objective. From there, food can be growing in any number
of ways, from conventional to organic and beyond, before it finds its
way to our plates.
Tomorrow is World Food Day and since I can't invite you all over
for dinner, I thought I'd serve up a smorgasbord of facts and figures about the
way the US
and the world eat or don't eat, as the case may be.
The New York Times pointed out how a flawed and inadequate USDA meat inspection system has
jeopardized the safety of those who eat meat and makes the simple act
of eating a burger a potential game of Russian roulette.
E. coli O157:H7, a virulent bacteria found in cattle manure was first
identified in 1975 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) and identified as a cause of human illness in 1982.
