The Super Bowl airing of a Dodge Ram commercial in which Paul Harvey described the noble qualities of a farmer is a glamorization of today’s typical agro-industrial production. It is not a true representation of the majority of today’s farmers.

Decades ago, farmers did possess gentility towards the animals they raised; they were a symbol of land stewardship and environmental awareness. Their passion was to cultivate life for the nourishment of others. The fertility and integrity of the land was a priority; it ensured future success. For the most part, farmers of the past are icons of an era that has been changed as much as the land they plow.

Too many of today’s farmers relentlessly sow a single crop in nutritionally barren land and repeatedly spray their yield with poisonous chemicals. Government subsidy checks are the priority instead of nutritious food. Their focus has shifted from sustainability to maximum profitability, resulting in vast fields of single crops and confined animal feeding operations.

Corporations have taken control of production away from the farmers, placing unnatural demands on the land and animals. These modern conventional farming practices have led to the rise in food borne illness; antibiotic, pesticide and herbicide resistance; genetic erosion of species; and a detachment of a people from their food source.

We cannot, however, lay all the blame on the farmer, or even the government. We, the public, the consumers, carry the majority of the responsibility for this dramatic change in our food production. We have sent a loud and clear message to farming companies, telling them that we approve of gluttony and harsh environmental practices, that we tolerate the plundering of our lands as long as there is a never ending supply of nutritionally substandard food. We tell them this every time we purchase today’s quick, prepackaged meals.

The once intimate relationship we had with our food is in the past, but it doesn’t need to stay there. For the health of our children, the preservation of our land, and the future of our people, we must rekindle our emotional connection to food: where it comes from, how it is grown, and the bonds that it can create among us. Food can once again become a means for celebration and family togetherness. We can take our first step with a return to purchasing fresh, local, wholesome foods.

Many of the qualities of a farmer mentioned by the Dodge Ram ad are maintained by today’s sustainable, heirloom, and organic farmers and ranchers. Their growing ranks are leading a shift back to fresh and local food production. By changing our consumption, we can demand a rise in organic, ethical farming. In turn, this rise in demand will impact food production, driving government policy to provide assistance to alternative, clean, environmentally conscious farmers instead of commodity producers.

God made a farmer, a steward of the land, an advocate for healthy food and humane ranching practices. Across the nation we are seeing a return of this iconic image of the farmer who raises grass fed beef and sheep, free range chickens, and organic crops. We want them to be bold and courageous, to stand against tyrannical corporations that dictate unsound methods of food production. We want them to succeed. But they cannot succeed without our full support—support that comes through our choices each time we buy our food.

Will we continue to use our dollars to support factory farming, GMO foods, and giant food conglomerates? Or will we choose organic? Grass fed? Free range? The choice is ours.

Why Mary’s Little Lamb Shouldn’t be at School

We live in a country where fried chicken tenders and grilled cheese sandwiches are typical children’s meals. It’s not surprising that many people pay little attention to where their meats come from and what is in them. Are they natural, or not? 

Healthy Lean Proteins Can Help Improve Your Diet

The building blocks of a healthy diet include five food groups: fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy, and protein foods. The amount of protein people should eat each day depends on their age, gender, and activity levels.

While most Americans do eat a sufficient amount of protein, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) points out that most people need to make more varied selections to include leaner options. Lean cuts of lamb are a healthy protein food that is often overlooked.

Lamb and other lean meats can be found at many meat markets and grocery stores, but consumers receive very little information about the protein they place in their shopping carts. Unless labeled otherwise, meat products often come from animals that were raised in feedlots and fed grains. These meats often contain traces of growth hormones, antibiotics, and other drugs that the animals received during their lifetimes.

GMO Foods: The Dangers

Feedlots are used in commercial factory farming because they allow farmers to contain more livestock in less space. The animals live in incredibly cramped, inhumane quarters, essentially living in their own waste. As a result, they frequently succumb to illness and constantly receive antibiotics. In addition, they are fed a diet that consists mainly of genetically-modified (GMO) grain, which is unnatural for both humans and animals.

A variety of commercialized GMO crops are grown in the U.S., and meats and other animal products such as eggs often come from animals that have been fed GMO foods. Anywhere from 85 to 91 percent of grain crops have been genetically modified. The reasons for genetic modification are often to increase production and reduce cost. Commercial growers can spray weed killers over the entire crop, but the weed killer is unable to kill the GMO plants. The plants that have had their DNA toyed with in the lab have been dubbed “frankenfoods” by those who are concerned about long term health of consumers.

GMOs can lead to unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects and health risks. These include but are not limited to allergies, toxins, nutritional problems, and even new diseases that are yet to be determined.

Understanding Organic Claims

Purchasing naturally raised foods is the easiest way to avoid foods that contain genetically modified ingredients. The U.S. and Canadian governments do not allow companies to label foods and products 100% Certified Organic if they contain genetically modified foods or ingredients. Unfortunately, foods that are labeled Made with Organic Ingredients may contain up to 70% organic ingredients—which means some ingredients may not be GMO-free.

Grass-Fed, Pasture-Fed Meats: The Basics

Lamb and other meats are often labeled with stickers reading grass-fed, a USDA term that means the animal was fed nothing but grass from weaning to harvest. Pasture-raised meats come from animals that were held in pastures rather than feedlots. Meat from  animals that were grass-fed and raised in local pastures are the only meats that are certain to be GMO free. There are substantial nutritional differences between meats from pasture-raised animals and those raised in feedlots.

Pasture-raised meats are comparatively:

• Lower in fat.
• Higher in protein.
• Lower in calories.
• Four times higher in vitamin E.
•  Higher in beta-carotene.
• Contain two to four times the omega-3 fatty acids, which greatly lowers risk of heart problems. Eggs from pasture raised chickens have ten times the amount of commercially-raised hens.
• Contain three to five times the level of CLA, which is a potent cancer defense.

Kindness to Animals

Animals do not fear the future. They live moment by moment, experiencing life and emotion in the short term. Animals raised in feed lots suffer each moment of their lives. Everything about that existence is unnatural and frightening. When the mass butchering begins, the animals are frightened by the smell of blood and by being hustled about, not knowing what is happening. This fear results in the release of adrenaline, which causes meat to be tougher than it would if the creature died while relaxed.

When animals are raised naturally, out in the pasture, they enjoy each moment of life. Rather than standing in their own waste, they live in the outdoors with sunshine, green grass, shade trees, and fresh, clear water. When the age of processing comes, there is no feed lot to endure. Most of the smaller growers are keenly aware of each detail and do their utmost to cause little fear for the herd.

While food labels can be confusing, it’s important for us to understand what we are putting into our own bodies. Spend a few minutes learning more about the dangers of GMOs and the importance of purchasing organic products and grass-fed, pasture-fed meats. The truth will shock you.

Just an idea…

I viewed this last presidential campaign through opened eyes; I used to be much more naive than I am today. Oh, I knew politicians lied, that they are corrupt. What you see is never what you get. But before I worked with Organic Lifestyle Magazine, I wasn’t really aware that corporations run this country. Yes, that is one thing I can give Monsanto credit for—they opened my eyes to the truth.

I hoped President Obama was telling us the truth when he said he was against big business and special interests running the country. Then he appointed Vilsack, a Monsanto man through and through, as the Secretary of Agriculture. And before I could pick myself up off the floor, President Obama tells us his version of healthcare for all is to pass a law to force us to pay our hard earned money to crooked insurance companies. At that point, I was done. No fork test needed.

So after the 2012 election I thought about the obscene amount of money it takes to run a successful campaign and where all that money comes from. I knew that those deep, deep pockets bought votes as well as future favors from the elected officials they put in office. That’s how the system works. So why not change the system?

If campaigns were free, corruption of our politicians by the money machine would end. And other benefits would ensue.

Imagine a website dedicated to the political election process. Each politician would have a profile listed with his full biography (one that has been well vetted for truth) along with his full voting and attendance record for any prior office held. He or she could state their stance on the issues and make promises—officially, publically, permanently. And if elected in office, that record for keeping or ignoring those promises would become part of the permanent public record as well. Candidates could hold debates on the website and voters could view those debates at their leisure. It would be so much easier to evaluate the similarities and the differences between the candidates. And so easy to separate lies from the truth. Voting records don’t lie.

According to Internet World Stats 78.6% of North Americans use the Internet. If we ensure that every public library houses public computers, our political website would be available to all Americans. But we could make it even easier. According to Statistic Brain. 99% of Americans own at least one television.  One dedicated television station could mirror the website, scrolling the same information.

No more TV or radio campaigns. No print costs. No touring. No outside marketing of any kind. No bought and paid for candidates. No cost at all to the politicians. Of course we would have to come up with a means to select candidates so that only serious, qualified individuals were allowed on the site. But we could figure that out.

Remember when I said there could be added benefits? Today’s politicians begin campaigning for their next election on the day they take office. With this new system, that practice would end, and our elected officials could focus on doing the jobs they were elected to do.

Another benefit, dare I say it? There would be no need for a party system. Imagine that! The best candidate could actually rise to the top and win! And all those Senators and Representatives could vote their conscience instead of worrying about Republican vs. Democrat party lines. And then judges appointed to the Supreme Court, the United States Courts of Appeals, and the Unites States district courts could be appointed the same way! No party affiliations to muck up their rulings!

And while we are at it, we could decide that women should have equal rights by law, that a line item veto is in the best interest of the country, and that poisoning our water and our food supply is not the job of our government. I know that’s not everything, but it would be a good start, don’t you think?

If only everyone would watch this film

Why are we as people and as a nation in so much debt? Why do our corporations continue to enslave us and brainwash us? Why are we always at war? Why do corporations control our government? Why are our medical system, food system, and educational system so corrupt? Why do we incarcerate so many people? Why is our nation failing financially? And what could we do to fix all of this?

This video explains it very well. If only everyone would watch it.

Grocery Shopping Makes Me Angry

I used to love to shop—especially at the farmers market. All those rows of beautiful, colorful, fruit and veggies. You could find anything—everything! It was paradise. But the last few times I went shopping, I didn’t enjoy the experience at all.

It wasn’t the long lines and the swarms of people; I avoid shopping on the weekends and during the “rush hour.” What makes me angry is the limited supply of organic produce and the outrageous prices.

One of the farmer’s markets I frequent shelves all of its organic produce along one short wall.  I’d estimate 23 linear feet of refrigeration and shelving. Turn around and you will see at least ten times as much conventional produce, at much lower prices. This particular market caters to the local Asian and Hispanic population, selling exotic greens and rare fruits, along with the staples we all use. I want to try cactus and funny looking eggplant, dragon fruit and star fruit, but none of these choices are organic.

In the farmer’s market where I do the bulk of my shopping, there was an entire row of peppers and an entire row of cucumbers, and not one of them was organic. And nearly every organic item was priced at twice the price per pound. If the conventional item was 99 cent a pound, the organic equivalent’s sticker read 1.99 per pound. There are exceptions of course. Organic watermelon was four times the price of conventional.

Why do we pay more to avoid being poisoned by our food?

Why Is Organic Food More Expensive?

Certified organic food is more expensive for several reasons. First and foremost good old supply and demand. Normally when we hear those magic words we think that the price was merely jacked up as high as the market will bear. But the truth is, when you only look at the short term costs, organic farming does cost more—at least in upfront labor costs, post harvest handling, marketing, and distribution.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, this is true around the world. They state:

• “Post-harvest handling of relatively small quantities of organic foods results in higher costs because of the mandatory segregation of organic and conventional produce, especially for processing and transportation;
• Marketing and the distribution chain for organic products is relatively inefficient and costs are higher because of relatively small volumes.”

Organic certification also adds considerable cost to the small farmer, both in fees and labor.

When we buy organic meats and dairy, we know the animals’ care and treatment was considerably better than that of animals raised in factory farms. The conventional big business practice is to leave these pitiful animals standing in filth, crowded in bins. They are fed low- cost GMO laden feed and shot full of antibiotics and hormones to keep them alive until they can be butchered.  Yes, of course, this inhumane treatment is less expensive than raising free range, organic fed, healthy animals. It is illegal to abuse a pet, yet when it comes to raising cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, and turkeys, we allow horrific, unspeakable animal cruelty to be the accepted norm.

Farming is much the same. In the short term it is cheaper to grow huge fields of one crop, to dump chemicals into the earth and spray with pesticides, to strip the land, than it is to rotate crops, replenish the soil naturally, and grow healthy pest resistant and disease resistant plants.  Instead, over time more and more chemicals are used to yield the same crops. But our fertile earth is dying, stripped of minerals and the healthy bacteria that ensures nutrient rich food.

The Cost of Conventional Agriculture

Although the current costs of conventional food are low, the true cost is so much higher.  It’s not just the little known fact that conventional farming is highly subsidized by the government, while organic farming is not. The true cost of today’s cheap conventional food does not reflect destruction of our farmlands, the health of the farm workers exposed to pesticides, or the effect on the health of every man, woman, and child eating foods with substandard nutrients contaminated with pesticides and herbicides, not to mention the genetically modified atrocities that disrupt fertility and damage our organs.

How Do We Make Organic Food Less Expensive?

Once again quoting the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations:  “As demand for organic food and products is increasing, technological innovations and economies of scale should reduce costs of production, processing, distribution and marketing for organic produce.”

So let’s keep up the demand. But we can do more.

Once, several years ago, I was visiting a friend in Kansas City, Missouri. She took me to her favorite grocery store, Wild Oats. It was a medium sized store, the size of a regular grocery store back in the day before we super sized everything. Although all the prices seemed reasonable, there were no signs telling me which produce was organic. My friend laughed. All of the produce and meat sold in Wild Oats was organic. And not one of the foods on their shelves contained MSG, hydrogenated oils, or other known harmful additives. Can you imagine what a joy it would be to shop if every grocery store sold nothing but organic, healthy food?

We have the power to take this country back from big business, to protect our most valuable resources—our land, our seed banks, our future. Write to your senators and congressmen. Call for a ban on factory farming, conventional farming, and GMO foods. Tell them organic farmers should be subsidized, not giant corporations that are raping the land. Push for laws to protect and support family farms including a waiver of inheritance taxes. And above all, stop purchasing hormone laden, antibiotic laden milk and meat. Buy organic meat, dairy and produce, even though it is more expensive. Most importantly, grow your own organic food! We have the power to render these poisoned foods obsolete by refusing to purchase them.

Whether you ascribe to conspiracy theories or plain cause and effect, there is no doubt the chemical cocktail we breathe, ingest, and absorb each day is dumbing down America.

CNN reports Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey, told a hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics and Environmental Health that of the 84,000 chemicals on the market today, only about one percent has been studied for safety and that our children are “guinea pigs in an uncontrolled experiment.” He has introduced legislation to require chemical manufacturers to prove product safety before products are marketed to the public.

The Environmental Working Group has conducted studies—body burden testing—since the early 2000s. They measure toxic chemicals in the blood of adults, children, and newborns. Testing for 550 chemicals, they have found 486 in their test subjects. Notable chemicals of concern include:

• BPA
• Lead, mercury, methymercury
• PFCs – “teflon” chemical
• PCBs – banned in the US in 76, still found in cord blood
• Musks from fragrances
• Pesticides
• Perchlorate (rocket fuel)

Cord blood studies show an average of 232 chemicals in the blood of newborn babies, chemicals found in plastics, cosmetics, shampoos, conditioners, mattresses and electronics. The Environmental Working Group is following these children from birth through early childhood and discovering a definite correlation between the number of chemicals found in their blood at birth and later development.

In addition to the chemicals we are exposed to through contamination of our food, water, and environment, our government purposefully forces us to ingest toxins through mandatory vaccinations and fluoridization of our water. Fluoride is more toxic than lead and accumulates in our bodies, yet we drink it every day.

Dr. Russell Blaylock, a retired neurosurgeon, released a you-tubevideo titled Chemical Dumbing Down of Society. It is his belief that the government allows or encourages the use of mercury in vaccinations and fluoride in water to purposefully dumb down our citizens to maintain a malleable society.    Whether our government promotes a toxic environment as a means to control society, chooses to ignore toxicity due to pressure from big business, or is simply not doing its job protecting its citizens, it is time we recognize the fact that our government does not protect us. Our government knowingly allows toxins that can affect our health and development to be included in medications, vaccines, food, water, soaps, shampoos, conditioners, beauty products and household items. It is imperative that we raise awareness on these issues and demand new protections.

We are the 19%

Driving my daughter to school early one morning, I was thinking about suffering. Real suffering. I was thinking about a story I recently heard about mothers in Somalia who embark upon a two-week trek to reach food and water. Along the way, a child becomes too weak to walk any further. The mother is forced to make a decision between 1 child and her remaining six. Does she stay with the 1 child, a decision that will ultimately result in the death of all her children? Or does she leave that one child behind, to die alone, sparing the lives of the other six? This story is stuck in my head. It doesn’t go away. Sometimes, I’ll just be watching my kids eat breakfast

and get overwhelmed with gratitude for being born into a life so abundant with food, water, and shelter. I’m grateful that I am not one of those mothers, yet pained by the fact that I feel absolutely helpless and powerless to change their circumstances.

How is it that we can extract oil from the other side the world, transport it across an ocean to refineries that turn it into a substance that can power millions of vehicles, yet we cannot get these starving children food and water?  Why can’t we get transportation for these mothers and their children who are walking for two weeks and dying along the way?  How is it that we can land on the moon and travel through space, but not get food and water to a country here on our very own planet?

How can we look at ourselves in the mirror and still want more, knowing that there are people in this world whose basic needs are not being met? As a mother, how can I want more, knowing that another mother has to leave her child behind to die to save her other children?

We are occupying Wall Street by the thousands. We are occupying Wall Street because our way of life has become threatened. We have lost our jobs. We have lost our homes. Our cars have been repossessed. We can’t afford to shop at Hollister; we have to settle for Target instead. We scrape the bottom of our purses looking for change to purchase our $2.45 cup of coffee from Starbucks; no more venti caramel macchiatos. We are not the 99%. We are the 19%. The majority, 80%, live in varying degrees of starvation, malnourishment, and extreme poverty, while 1% keep the 19% drunk on material wealth and gorged on stuff, stuff, and more stuff. The 80% are out of sight and out of mind. Industrialized agriculture has stolen their food and killed their soil. Manufacturers in search of cheap labor have polluted their air and water. Corrupt governments have raped their land of natural resources. ALL OF THIS is done so you and I can have more stuff. WE, the consumers, are the problem. WE, the consumers, have ALL THE POWER. If tomorrow, everyone in support of occupy Wall Street spent NO MONEY, and demanded that somebody, somewhere get those mothers and their babies in Somalia some food and water before we will spend another penny, we would see change happen fast. Yes, we might have to get a little uncomfortable. We might even have to get a little hungry for a few days, but WE would know our power and we would never forget it, nor would the corporations or the 1% whose very existence relies on the certainty that tomorrow you and I will wake up and at some point throughout the day, we will spend money.