The new Food Czar

Talk about putting the fox in charge of the hen house…

President Obama recently selected Michael Taylor, former chief lobbyist for Monsanto, as the new “food safety czar” at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Think about that: The former lawyer and lobbyist for the company that manufactured Agent Orange will now make decisions about our nation’s food supply.

Taylor is the man most responsible for getting recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH) approved for use in dairy cows. That’s the stuff that fattens the cows to dangerously obese sizes, getting them ready for slaughter faster (By the way – Monsanto produces the growth hormone).

And the food safety concerns don’t stop there. The push for producing food faster extends to the produce you eat, too.

Genetically-modified seeds and hormones are now staples in the food you eat. You drink it in your milk, eat it in your cheese and yogurt, and ingest it each time you eat commercially-raised, grain-fed beef.

Since these seeds hit the market in 1996, we’ve seen:

• Children reach puberty at earlier ages

• A dramatic rise in asthma, autism, obesity and diabetes (not to mention the other degenerative diseases that are more prominent today)

• A jump in food allergies, especially among children

• Allergy-related emergency room visits double from 1997-2002 (that is the latest figures I could find but am sure that the percent has steadily risen.  I will be doing some researchc on that one for us)
  

Your health is too vital to leave it in the hands of corporate lobbyists and their political cronies. It doesn’t have to be this way. Take charge of your own food choices.

Here’s how to do it:

• Don't be fooled by beef labeled “organic”. The organic label only means that the cattle do not have obvious levels of antibiotics or hormones in their body at the time of slaughter. It does not mean that ranchers have never given cattle these treatments.

• Get serious about eating grass-fed beef. There are many farmers who have pledged to raise their cows purely on the natural foods they are supposed to eat – grass, not grains. Visit www.grasslandbeef.com and www.eatwild.com for a list of grass-fed farms in the U.S. and Canada.  BUT FIRST: Check your local community area within 100 miles of where you live. 

• Become a locovore. There is a movement in place to eat and buy locally from farmer’s co-ops within a 100-mile radius of where you live. Visit your local farmer’s market and ask questions about how they grow their crops. Threats to small family farmers and co-ops may come from heavy-handed regulations by the food safety czar, so get the good stuff while it lasts. We have alot of small farmers that are here to help in the local Priest River Area and around the state of Idaho.  If you have extra fenced ground, maybe add a couple of stock to make extra money AND be there for your neighbor with GOOD food.

• Share Your Information.  Pay it Forward.  I've been blessed with many people (I think of them as mentors) that have shared what they have learned so I am better able to make more logical decisions for today and tomorrow.  Had it not been for them, I most likely just 15 years ago would have voted for Obama.  That is how ignorant of facts that I was at the time.  We can't beat ourselves up because we didn't know what we didn't know (so I've been told) :).  We continue to learn and to share what we learn.  Promote your local farmers and growers, they need us, as we certainly need them.   The Priest River Times (or your own local newspaper) is a great place to let your community know what is available and what could soon be made available.  Check out and participate in your local area Community Garden Project, or start one if needed, buy from your local farmer's markets or raise and grow your own. 

• Stop Supporting the Corporations.  In these days where families are spending their precious dollars for corporate goods, it is the best of times to re-evaluate your family budgets.  Are we spending money for things that are only contributing to the bank accounts of the corporate leaders?  Let us become good stewards with what we have been given.  A great way to start today is to become more aware of those purchases that are not only contributing to the the beast that is destroying this world, but also be aware of what purchases may be actually contributing to the degeneration of the human body itself.  We can all start at TaxFree15th.com and begin a good "habit".

"We must become the change we want to see"  ~Mahatma Ghandi

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