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TechnoratiWe Can't Reform Health Care Without Reforming Food
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.
Corporate agribusiness has invested nearly $1.2 billion (and growing) on lobbyists -- more money than even the defense lobby. Naturally, much of this lobbying has been aimed at deregulating how food is processed and manufactured, as well as how corporate agribusinesses raise and process livestock. It's an industry that's entangled in everything from Big Tobacco to human trafficking and illegal immigration.
Most recently, and speaking of poisoned filth, you may have watched as Rick Berman was eviscerated by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC a few weeks ago. In case you missed it, Berman's Center for Consumer Freedom is financed by corporate agribusiness, among others, and tasked with deceiving the public about everything from high fructose corn syrup to transfat, mercury levels in fish, obesity issues, food labels, and tobacco laws. CCF is all about confusing the public by muddying scientific fact and skewing the debate onto ridiculous tangents to the point where it's difficult to tell the difference between what's healthy and what's crap. It's Glenn Beck's rodeo clown strategy applied to food.
The consequence for you and me, of course, is that the food is becoming increasingly toxic, both in terms of what goes into our bodies, and in terms of how deregulation and deception is hurting the economy. What good is health care reform if we're still being fed poison? What good is an economic recovery if big business is still gaming the system?
Here's a perfect example of what they're getting away with. In Ohio next week, voters will be deciding on a ballot measure known as Issue 2.
As I'm sure you're aware -- and I'll spare you the gruesome videos -- corporate farms maximize profit by packing as many animals into ridiculously tight spaces. Imagine being forced to live out your life in the equivalent of a high school gym locker. While confined and unable to move, the animals are injected with a variety of hormones, antibiotics and other medications. Medications designed for animals, not humans. They're force-fed grains laced with pesticides and other chemicals. And when they're not eating chemically-tainted grain, they're often fed the remains of other animals -- old or sick animals that aren't shoved through the system and turned into food for humans (we often share food with, you know, our food). The list of atrocities is lengthy, but the end result is that a variety of unhealthy, possibly deadly toxins and diseases wind up, unannounced, on our mouths.
...the American Journal of Epidemiology reported that people who eat eggs from hens confined in cages are 250% more likely to contract Salmonella. The extreme confinement of animals is also a major factor in the emergence of diseases like H5N1 and H1N1 (bird and swine flu).
And that's with the Department of Agriculture, along with public participation in oversight, keeping an eye on things.
Issue 2, however, would for all intents and purposes replace federal regulation with something called the Livestock Care Standards Board. The thirteen member board would be appointed by the governor and would include members who have skin in the game. The stated goal of the board would be to regulate how animals are kept. So it sounds like it's a good thing. They're going to protect Babe and his cute barnyard friends!
But that's not how it'll work.
Naturally, the board will be susceptible to intense lobbying and coercion from the usual corporate villains. Imagine Rick Berman types unleashing their evil fury of confused logic and lie-mongering on a small 13 member state board, as opposed to the massive and monolithic federal government. The end result will be conditions that are far, far worse than they are today -- producing food that's even more dangerous, and all of it overriding the authority of the federal government.
While sounding wholesome on the surface, Issue 2, to paraphrase Grover Norquist, is designed to shrink regulatory oversight so it's small enough to be drowned in a bathtub. Corporate agribusiness will be able to run the show and maximize industry profits by continuing the very practices that Issue 2 claims to repair. And it'll all be codified into the Ohio Constitution. Ultimately, any attempts to reverse course will have to clear much larger hurdles.
And here's the really scary news.
"We've tried to model this in a way that other states can look at it," said Jack Fisher, executive vice president of the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation. "This involves farmers, ranchers, everyone in the food chain."
Oh good. So instead of spending large sums of cash lobbying Congress and the federal government, Big Food and corporate agribusinesses will be able to focus their efforts on small states and their quaint little livestock boards -- crushing them and reprocessing the remains into liquid form and dumping them into the factory feeding troughs. Not literally, of course. I hope.
So while this may seem like a small issue about animal welfare in one state, it's actually step one in a process that will make an already deadly national crisis even worse.
Much like we've witnessed with the health insurance cartel and Wall Street, without a strong regulatory body keeping an eye on even the smallest details, we all end up screwed in the process. Opponents will suggest that regulation only makes everything more expensive. But I would rather pay a little more for a pound of beef than to suffer through Stephanie Smith's ordeal with E. Coli:
Then her diarrhea turned bloody. Her kidneys shut down. Seizures knocked her unconscious. The convulsions grew so relentless that doctors had to put her in a coma for nine weeks. When she emerged, she could no longer walk. The affliction had ravaged her nervous system and left her paralyzed.
Corporate profits and cheap food to put on your families -- or bloody diarrhea, a nine week coma and paralysis. Hmm. That's a tough call. Let's have a small, vulnerable livestock panel decide!
Sorry, no.
If Issue 2 is written into the Ohio Constitution next week, it'll be that much more difficult for Americans to remain healthy, with or without reforming the health care system. Help us out, Ohio, and vote against this thing.
17 Comments so far
Show AllBring America Back !!!!.......!!,,,Please Mr Cesca DO NOT mention this to any Bureaucrat in Wash, DC, because they just passed a 2000 page legislative bill on Healthcare last
week, which probably does not even contain the english word
"FOOD", as it relates to the health of the human body !!!!
On the other hand, the word "Insurance Premiums" from the sheeples of America no doubt appears on every page, dammit !
A great article and one that finally helps the left see what is really happening with food. Local farming is under threat. It is the only way to have safe food, while agribusiness has S 510, a draconian anti-"food safety" bill which would destroy farming here.
Thanks for this excellent article.
The production of ethanol and soy diesel in the Midwest has expanded far too rapidly over the last five years. The byproducts of both ethanol from corn and soy diesel are livestock feeds. Ethanol production creates distiller’s grain, the wet spent mash left over from the fermented grain. Because it is wet it's heavy (drying it uses energy) it is not economical to transport it more than 100 miles. It is also a marginal source of livestock food nutrition and can not account for more than 20% - 25% of an animal’s feed. Because it’s wet it rots so it can not be stockpiled.
Soy diesel creates soybean meal as a byproduct. Soybean meal is a high quality livestock feed.
To consume these byproducts on the massive scale they are being created from the production of bio-fuels there will need to be huge increases in factory farming of livestock in the Midwest.
The ethanol industry has fallen on very hard times recently, VeraSun, the second largest producer of ethanol from corn in the U.S. filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 28, 2008. It was not possible to reorganize the company and the bankruptcy judge ordered the assets of the corporation auctioned off to partially pay off the creditors of the company. The ethanol distilling plants of VeraSun sold for around fifty cents on the dollar of what it cost to build them.
At a time when Americans are becoming more and more health conscience Big Agri is gearing up to produce more unhealthy factory farmed meat, milk and eggs. This is happening even though the production of most livestock at the farm level is currently not profitable. Hardest hit are dairy and hog farmers but substantially lower prices for corn and soybeans are hammering grain farmers as well. Here’s an article from the Wall Street Journal on the recession hitting farm prices;
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125138431827963711.html
Switching from soy and corn for ethanol to switch grass would actually reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
Obesity and diseases like Diabetes were virtually unknown amongst Native North Americans 60 years + ago.
Today it an epidemic with rates amongst tribes in Arizona the highest in the world.
This can be linked directly to the CRAP diet. That Processed food we fill our bodies with. I am sure there are millions of people who do not know what GOOD food tastes like.
Again, after Pound, from Canto XLV:
. . .
with usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread ever more of stale rags
is thy bread dry as paper,
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour . . .
Bob Cesca,
Let's reform healthcare the correct way.
This country as it is now can hardly reform healthcare with the right things in it.
So, let's try not to confuse this healthcare reform by injecting food reform into it. I mean, isn't it obvious that these stooges in Congress are having a hard enough time arguing about single payer vs. the public option or opt-out's and you realistically think injecting food reform into this bill has any chance? I mean these people in Congress can just about argue two significant bills at any given time. Your expectation is not realistic with this bunch in Congress. In a perfect world or society or with people whom were actually serious at healthcare reform, yes, it could work.
The Food Policy in this country obviously overlaps with agriculture and the Commerce Committees. I suggest you write to those on the Commerce Committee and the Food and Drug Administration. It's not a bad idea but these people cannot even argue the merits of the healthcare bill at its most basic levels and you actually think they will give a hearing to reforming the food policy? C'mon, Bob, you are not that naive are you?
Bob, if I was a conspiracy theorist, I might even allege you are trying to change the debate and mislead people down the wrong path at this point in the debate over healthcare. I hope you are not performing a duty here as a disinformation operative.
Yet, still, c'mon, Bob, get over yourself already!!!
We need to inform each other and spread the word to our younger generations the history of agriculture and why it was great until 50 years ago. As it is, I don't expect any health care reform to pass in Washington or in my own state of MO. I remember Moondoggy, Cassandra, and Sioux Rose mentioning most of what is written in this article and I too think that we must balance it all out. Health care reform isn't just about insurance, doctors, lawyers, and patients. As one who has learned bitter lessons about health and have reformed my own health over the last few years, I can't tell you how much I learned through experience the significant difference between eating locally grown food versus processed junk that is usually addictive. I still feel guilty and heartbroken that I squandered away my opportunities to eat locally when those small farms were alive when I was much younger. I had met one of those farmers earlier this year when I went to visit my folks. I asked him what it would take to bring back the small farm and told him my regrets. He forgave me but said that it's usually hard to go back once the farm is given away. The good news is that there is a growing awareness of growing local but I also realize that those of us who learned our lessons must continue to pass those lessons learned to other newcomers. Thank you Cesca and Common Dreams for this article.
This article is totally on target. But, there is one fact that often goes unmentioned when people talk about reforming the food industry. This may not be news to anyone here, but an acquaintance of mine once told me that she had witnessed how food industry giants lobbied to change laws regarding the usage of food stamps so that low-cost junk food could be purchased with food stamps. These Big [Junk] Food businesses are still opposed to any legal changes that can be made regarding the purchasing of junk food with food stamps (one example of such lobbying efforts in 2007 can be found here: http://www.allbusiness.com/retail-trade/food-beverage-stores-specialty-food/4510508-1.html). So, because junk food is cheap and ubiquitous, people on food stamps often choose to consume junk food over healthier food.
It's as if the government is subsidizing the consumption of junk food, really.
No one would want to have processed food restrictions on food stamps more than me but I can't ever figure out a simple plan. Whatever standard that would be established, there would be ways around them. Would hot dogs be included? How does a cashier monitor things at check out? Too complicated unless you specify exactly what can be purchased, as they do with WIC/ And it would mean a head on assault on the industry, which no one will undertake.
The gov't has been subsidizing everything awful about our current system of food production for decades. They gave low interest loans to get CAFOs started and keep trying to exempt them from environmental regulations. Obama said he would stop paying for manure containment construction but I've seen no follow-up. And, that means we've been paying for them. In the 90's the gov't approved the right to patent genes. In the 60's, they decided to promote commercial fishing by giving low-interest loans to people who wanted to buy big trawlers. Yes, then they overfished and many people who took advantage of the deal were not real fishermen but people who saw an opportunity to make a buck at the gov't's expense. Familiar pattern here? The current appointments of Monsanto people to be in charge of food safety and international trade should tell us all we need to know.
We need to reform more than the food system if we want decent health care or anything else. I hope no one doubts the bipartisan nature of this destruction, and the fact that a Republican, Ron Paul, is the biggest opponent of support for agribusiness and also supports reining in the FDA.
Totally agree with you. As far as people finding ways around restrictions on food stamps - well... it must mean *something*, since the Big Junk Food companies are fighting it.
I guess you can't force anyone to be healthy, either, but there are ways to more effectively monitor the garbage that we are currently encouraged to consume. If so many European countries can do it, I don't know why we can't... theoretically, at least.
As an aside: let me tell you - there are a lot of [academic] scientists who think that gene patenting is totally stupid, too.
"It's as if the government is subsidizing the consumption of junk food, really."
Not only is government doing that but they are also persecuting small farmers in every direction. I also wished the environmentalists would recognize that Big Agri, not small farmers, are the global warming culprits as far as global warming in terms of agriculture is concerned.
Good point. Have to agree with you, too. : )
While I agree that Issue 2 needs to be stopped, at the same time, existing laws have not prevented the abuse of animals at industrial farms.
Why do people eat industrially farmed meat? Is it ignorance of the conditions in which the animals are raised? Or is it simply that they don't care (enough to stop)? Ignorance or malice.
IMHO, Cesca should NOT spare people the gruesome videos. The gruesome videos need to be shown.
"Corporate agribusiness has invested nearly $1.2 billion (and growing) on lobbyists -- more money than even the defense lobby".
Thank you Bob Cesca and Common Dreams for this informative article on agribusiness.
PEOPLE OF OHIO - VOTE NO TO ISSUE 2.
This concerns our health and our morality as it relates to animal welfare.
Our country does not need further deregulation.
Deregulating the agribusiness in Ohio will further put our health and our lives at risk.