Food Freedoms and Parental Rights Fall Prey to Tyranny and Greed

Yes, once again the little dictators are out of control...trampling our inalienable, fundamental, natural rights; running roughshod over our personal freedoms.  Read on for this week's "tyranny in review."

Pastured Pork Comes Under the Gun

As reported by the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, "In a brazen power grab threatening the livelihood of hundreds of small farmers, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is using the state Invasive Species Act to expand its jurisdiction beyond hunting and fishing to farming operations. On April 1, 2012 an Invasive Species Order (ISO) that DNR issued in December 2010 prohibiting the possession of a number of different types breeds of swine will go into effect." (emphasis mine)

And from Hartke Online: "The Michigan Pork Producers Association is endorsing a radical move on the part of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR). The DNR has declared feral pigs an “invasive species.” Under its interpretation any domestic pig can be considered feral. The DNR is putting fine-dining chefs and the farmers who supply them on notice. Heritage breed pigs may soon be off the menu, and prohibited on pasture-based farms. Also affected will be the many Michigan families who choose to buy humanely raised meat for their family table." (emphasis mine)

This is nothing more than an attack on pasture-based clean food farmers.  Well, it is more...  This is also an attack on consumer choice--on your ability to purchase clean food from small, responsible, humane, healthy farms.  Once again, the dirty food industry (in this case, the pork industry) is vying for complete control of consumer choices and is using the government to accomplish its agenda.  The Michigan DNR does not even have jurisdiction over farming operations!  Naturally raised heritage-breed pigs are already a rarity in this country.  If Michigan has its way, those numbers will continue to decline.  Which other states will use this as precedent and follow suit?  First it's the natural, historical, free-range, pastured pigs.  What's next?  Jersey cows?!

Dominoes by whoaitsfrancesca

This may seem like a small issue to anyone not living in Michigan or anyone not eating pastured pork.  But little things breed big things.  It only takes one domino to topple the entire structure.  Those of us who have raised or are raising pastured, heritage breed pigs know exactly what is at risk.  Heritage breed pigs can be difficult to procure and quite expensive (certain breeding pairs, such as the Mangalitsas, can cost as high as $3,000).  Anyone who cares about Real Food freedom and consumer choice; anyone who understands the essential need to keep community, pasture-based farms in business; and anyone who desires to consume healthy lard should be very concerned about this potential threat.

Heritage breed, as defined by The American Livestock Breeds Conservatory, "typically means the traditional livestock breeds that were raised by our forefathers. These are the breeds of a bygone era, before industrial agriculture became a mainstream practice. These breeds were carefully selected and bred over time to develop traits that made them well-adapted to the local environment and they thrived under farming practices and cultural conditions that are very different from those found in modern agriculture."

Historical breeds have not been manipulated for the CAFO industry.  Heritage pigs retain their natural traits and instincts, are better mothers (unlike their unnatural CAFO-reared cousins who have a reputation for smothering to death their young), and are better adapted to living outside, foraging, and thriving on pasture.  For a pastured pig, diet includes anything growing on top of and under the ground.  Pigs are amazing plow-snouted, digging "machines" and will unearth and devour all types of roots.  As Joel Salatin points out, the natural pig is a fantastic friend to the farmer or anyone who needs to have ground turned over (even stumps removed).  This exercise, exposure to sunshine and fresh air, and vegetative diet produces healthy pork and lard, the king of fats.

Elvis, a Tamworth from Bone Dry Ridge Farm, WA

Last year, my husband decided to raise two heritage-breed Tamworth pigs on our little "homestead."  I can assure you they are neither feral nor dangerous, but they are far removed from modern industrial confinement pigs.  Tamworths, nicknamed the Irish Grazer for their propensity to thrive so well on free-range pastures, make great bacon.  Our pigs lived happily outside on pasture, rooting to their hearts' content, and were fed only organic, raw veggie and fruit scraps, and select organic (mostly sprouted) grains (no soy or corn).  The Tamworths provided our first exposure to rearing, butchering and eating our own clean pork.  It was even the first time in my life that I had prepared pork...and it has been delicious!  I rarely ate pork through the years because of my concern about the health and safety of commercial pork products; anytime I ate industrial pork through the years, I suffered terrible GI distress.  I have found the reverse to be true while consuming our pastured pork...I feel wonderfully satiated and suffer no adverse affects from eating our pigs.  Industrial pork is an unhealthy food riddled with problems of toxicity.  Pastured pork, however, fed its proper raw diet and raised outside in sunshine with earth to turn, plants to eat, and room to roam, is a fantastic food.

The best part of raising our own pigs was the opportunity to render the lard.  Pastured lard is the second richest source of vitamin D.  Clean, organic, pastured

Michigan farmer Mark Baker of Baker's Green Acres farm, who raises a rare breed of pig that he sells to fine chefs and artisan charcuterie producers, has filed a lawsuit to stop the implementation of the onerous and illegitimate ISO.  Baker's Mangalitsa hogs (yes, those $3,000 pigs), considered by many to be the consummate gourmet pork, would come under threat...as would any heritage breed pigs on any farm.  As Baker notes in his complaint, "close examination of the wording of the ISO reveals that it outlaws the entire pig species, then makes an exception for pigs involved in ‘domestic hog production."

As a result of this unjustifiable, despotic move, Michigan pasture-based clean food pig farmers could lose their entire herds.  Confused and upset farmers demanded a meeting with DNR.  The farmers, some of whom had driven more than six hours to get to the meeting, were met by armed men, one wearing a Kevlar jacket, that were sent to "monitor the proceedings."  The farmers were given a six-minute presentation, after which the DNR refused to take questions.  Wow!  Totalitarian tactics and armed men?  What kind of threat did they expect to encounter?!  What's the message here?  "Comply or be silenced?"

Is this for real?  Sadly, it's not the stuff of Orwellian story telling...it is happening right now, right in our "land of the free."  Please read the truth for yourself and please contact Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, demanding (er, I mean, encouraging) that he repeal the ridiculous and fraudulent DNR ISO that will take effect April 1.  Also, please consider joining the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund and even supporting farmer Mark Baker in his fight against the Michigan DNR.

Related links:

Michigan CAFOs Conspire with Government to Ban Outdoor Pig Farming 

Mark Baker Testifies at Michigan State Capital--Ag Committee

Michigan DNR Going Hog Wild

Insane Michigan government announces plan to destroy ranch livestock based on hair color and arrest hundreds of ranchers as felons 

Michigan Wants Small Heritage Pig Producers Gone

Newborn Kidnapped by Social Workers and Hospital Staff, Mom Tossed Out
As reported by NaturalNews, " Another shocking case of tyrannical, overzealous social workers and hospital staff has unfolded in Pennsylvania, where a mom who just gave birth in an ambulance to a healthy baby girl was threatened by a government social worker and accused of not allowing her child to receive "medical treatment." (A claim which is factually false.) In reality, the new mom, exhausting from giving birth in an ambulance, was merely asking questions and trying to determine how her newborn daughter was being treated by hospital staff."



After being bullied and threatened (and remember, the woman had just birthed her daughter) for noncompliance, Jodi Ferris was thrown out of the Hershey, PA hospital and her baby was vaccinated against her parents' wishes.  Of what crime were this baby's parents being accused?  What abuse had they perpetrated against their newborn daughter to warrant CPS and police intrusion and action?  This baby, minutes old, was seized and kept from her parents and violated by the medical establishment because her mother dared to question the system and refused consent for a vaccination.  Read it and weep!  That's a crime worthy of losing our children over now!  Absolute insanity.


Ferris is a homeschooling mother in a state known for its onerous interference and regulation.  She is a homebirthing mother (if only she had remained at home to birth her child, as originally planned...) in an age of the "one size fits all" medical system.  Independent thought and action has become an increasingly unpopular and threatening "subculture" in America.  As Ferris's story reveals, individuals pursuing an alternative path fall under the ire of the technocratic, profit-mad hospital "birth" machine.  My midwife sees clients who (for whatever reason) transport to the hospital come under fire and harassment, even threatened for noncompliance.  It is a mournful and not uncommon scenario.  These abuses of power by government workers and the unnecessary, unsafe interventions and personal violations by the medical establishment seem to be par for the course in America today.  We are a nation run by bullies, fueled by corporations and industries with limitless financial and political power.  They want absolute control and we are meant to obey.


What's the message here?  "Some woman planned to give birth to her baby without our technocratic interference? How dare she!  Some parent refuses our vaccinations...inconceivable!  We must make an example of them."  The medical elite is ready to punish you for ejecting yourself outside the system.  Personal freedom?  Not on their watch.  It's like a life-sized medical mafia version of "whack-a-mole" perpetrated against nonconformists who step outside the box.  The medical industry has set its agenda and determined what is acceptable for you and your children.  The message is clear:  Disobey at your own risk.  


I do not believe for one minute that the hospital's actions were spurred by malpractice concerns.  This is about control and conformity...the program may not be breached.  Myriad individuals regularly refuse coercive medical procedures and their desires and rights are being disregarded and encroached upon.  Would it make a difference if every nonconformist who ends up pitted against a doctor, nurse or hospital worker played a stronger hand?  "I'm the consumer...I write the checks.  You are the service provider, you work for me!  This is my body (or my baby/child) and I do not consent to your intrusions, drugs and/or procedures.  Anything short of compliance to my wishes is an assault and I will call the police and my lawyer."  That's the way it should work.  Does it?  Will it?  Could it?  One can only hope.....


Thankfully, lawyers from HSLDA (vigilant defenders of homeschooling and parental rights) are determined to fight this case on behalf of the Ferris family.  Let us all hope and pray that the case is won and sets new precedent protecting parental rights for us all.  Please consider contributing to HSLDA for this cause, as it is a donations-based organization whose lawyers do not charge client fees. 

Related links:

Hospital Workers Call Police to Seize Newborn, Throw Mom Out, Assault Baby with Vaccines

Newborn Seized in Hospital by Police, Social Worker

Mother Who Questions Vax at Hospital Has Newborn Taken Away

***
These disturbing stories strike a personal chord, as mine is a homesteading, heritage-animal raising, homeschooling, homebirthing family.  I hope you all are as outraged and concerned as I...together, we can resist and perhaps even turn the tide.

News You Should Know

As I have been unable to devote any significant time to writing this month, I wanted to share some news items that have caught my attention and are (I believe) worthy of contemplation.  (Thanks to my valued contacts for their contributions...you know who you are.)


First up, we have a heart surgeon telling the public that the fear of fat so aggressively promoted by the establishment is a big, fat lie.  (And all the WAPF acolytes say: "We could have told you that!"  Nevertheless, it's good to see this truth getting more press.)  "The injury and inflammation in our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet recommended for years by mainstream medicine."  Read more about What Really Causes Heart Disease.



Next, we have our infamous FDA considering the release of multiple pharmaceuticals into the "over-the-counter" category.  (How considerate!...making it easier for the masses to drug themselves further into chronic toxicity and not apply true healing cures.  I mean, we certainly wouldn't want people to continue seeking natural alternatives to prescription drugs.  Snark warning...oops, too late.)


Next, take a look at the beautiful truth about vitamin C and whooping cough.


Next, a cautionary tale for any parent who is concerned about vaccination (and you should be) and believes the government and doctors do NOT have the right (and they don't) to vaccinate your children without your consent.


And while we're talking about your rights to avoid the harms caused by vaccination, here's a great essay by Dr. Russell Blaylock on mandatory vaccination.  Blaylock is an outspoken neurosurgeon who works to warn the public about the dangers of vaccination. 


Next, read about how babies are harmed by their mothers' use of antidepressants.




Finally, here's an informative graphic look at the uselessness of the TSA's cancer machines (aka "body scanners").  (One caveat:  I don't agree with the downplayed stats of the cancer risk...otherwise, I enjoyed this map of the insanity that is the TSA and its unethical, immoral and illegal "grope and pillage" tactics.)



Created by: Online Criminal Justice Degree




Well, that's it for now...I may come back later and add more as the cobwebs clear from the little grey cells.  My final thought for the day:  I don't take health advice from the government or the mainstream medical industry.  I hope you don't either.  Until next time, be well, stay informed and become your own expert!

Tracing Monsanto/Federal Collusion

In my last post, I touched on the significant danger of impotent labeling laws, allowing GMOs to be passed off as food.  Mercola's latest post on the topic, highlighting Vermont's proposed GMO labeling law, provided a valuable graphic that deserves attention.


This chart (click here to expand) reveals the former Monsanto employees who hold/held federal government positions, including heads of the USDA and the FDA, and a Supreme Court justice:

The American public needs to shed its delusion that our government is a benevolent, philanthropic entity devoted to our best interests.  I believe we are all intelligent enough to understand the implications here...so I need not belabour the point.  Consider this another tool in your "educating friends and family" arsenal.

If You Want Grandchildren, Don't Feed Your Kids Commercial Corn

And you should avoid it, too, for that matter!  If you don't choose carefully, your food could be sterilizing you.  This isn't new news, but I feel it bears rehashing, especially for those not "in the know."

In 2001, Epicyte, a CA bio-engineering company, revealed that it had created spermicidal GM corn.  So how do you know if you have consumed this fertility-destroying corn?  You don't...because products containing GM corn aren't labeled with a warning, nor is this franken-food being sold at the pharmacy as a birth control method (which would be best avoided for multitudinous reasons).  It's just another wave of GM corn in the food supply somewhere in the world.  The ultimate buyer beware sneak.



GMOs are not foods, they are weapons!  Trusting the government and the food industry is a dangerous business.  Those of us who refuse to buy Monsanto and cronies' pro-GMO whitewashing schemes already understand the health hazards of GMOs.  Outspoken GMO opponent and health freedom advocate Jeffrey Smith has long been warning the public about the hazards of these franken-foods.  Sterility has already made the list of GM "food's" deleterious effects.  So, Epicyte's spermicide corn is not the only GMO infertility route.  What makes Epicyte's corn especially malevolent is its designed purpose as a sterilizer, and its proposed use by supporters among the global population.  It begs the question:  What's next in the world of "pharma-food?"  Who else will receive USDA funding and for what nefarious scheme?  (Nearly two dozen biotech firms and universities have franken-food projects in the works, apparently with hopes of creating a food supply filled with vaccines.) 


Why sneak spermicidal corn into the global food supply?  Silly question, right?  Are not all the food and medical industry's ploys about control?  In this case, maybe population control?  Crazy?  Well, call me crazy, but when I see population control mega-advocate Bill Gates attached to a project, I start doing the math.  (In fact, GMOs aren't the only means available of involuntary infertility and population control.  Gates' other pet project plays a role in this awful drama...but that's a discussion for another day.)  I'm not surprised by Gates' behaviour, considering his population control comments in 2010, and his Monsanto investments.

Regardless of one's political or religious ideology, we should all be able to agree that forced sterilization is a violation of human rights.  If a consumer chooses to ingest spermicidal corn, that's one thing...but this isn't being presented as an open option on the food and drug market.  Consumers cannot know when they are eating GMOs because the public is not being protected by labeling laws.  Rather, fertility-diminishing GMO corn, along with its franken-food friends, is being thrust upon unwitting victims.  Will you be one of them?


For various political and health reasons, I do not consume corn, nor will I feed it to my children.  Frankly, I don't trust the corn supply...even the "Organic" variety.  But consuming habits vary, so my best advice (and this is not revelatory, I know) is to eschew industrial food...buy Real Food, beyond organic, as much as you can.  Don't buy food containing corn, soy, canola, and the other major GM players.  At some point, even purchasing "USDA Organic" food may not protect us from GMOs.  This is a dangerous game and we need to protect ourselves...no one else will do it.

Free Online Screening of "Fresh," the Clean Food Documentary

Fresh, the clean food documentary by Ana Sofia Joanes (featuring real food advocates Joel Salatin, Michael Pollan, et al), can be viewed online until February 1.  Don't miss this opportunity, and please share the link with your family and friends.

Watch Fresh Online

As many years as I have under my belt on this issue...as much as I've read and seen and heard...I couldn't keep myself from cringing through the "industrial food" segments of the film.  I kept muttering, "This is madness!"  and "Complete Insanity!"  Even my son got in on the action..."That would never happen if they didn't grow all that monoculture!" he cried.  And, at one point in the film, while watching with frustration a scene of an industrial cow feedlot, we both said, "That causes deadly e coli!!"  It was one of those times I was proud that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree!  

I also wanted to share this youtube video of a TEDxAustin speaker...former food industry analyst turned real food crusader, Robyn O'Brien.  Her message dovetails nicely with the lessons in Fresh and its predecessor, Food, Inc.  O'Brien's book, The Unhealthy Truth: One Mother's Shocking Investigation into the Dangers of America's Food Supply-- and What Every Family Can Do to Protect Itself, details her journey.

Thanks to a fellow real foodie crusader for sharing this with me...sickness and life has me out of the loop a bit right now, LOL.  Check out the January issue of the Food Bits & Bites newsletter for more great clean food news and recipes.

The Ugly Facts on Medical Lobbyists

I know...I'm breaking my own hiatus...but I just couldn't help it.  The following alert from Mercola is too important for me to ignore; it's the kind of thing I feel compelled to share.  I will not elaborate on it, nor will I copy it in entirety here.  I ask you to go to the link, read the article and watch the clips for yourself.  And please share this with others.

Medical Lobbyists Stealing Your Freedom



[Once again, I want to say that I am not in exact agreement with everything Mercola says and does. But overall, I think he provides an important service to the public by way of his health information and alerts. I appreciate his zeal and his concern for sharing and warning as much as he does, so I can overlook some of his more conventional views and somewhat pushy selling strategies.]



My aversion for the conventional medical system and our political system is kindled by the information shared in Mercola's latest post.

A few highlights (quoted from Mercola's article):

"The pharmaceutical industry is the BIGGEST political lobby in the US. There should be no doubt about the power the drug industry wields in shaping the U.S. health care system, and political lobbying is one of the primary reasons why the drug companies are controlling nearly the entire the health industry. 

*** 

In just one decade, from 1998 to 2008, the pharmaceutical industry alone spent $1.5 BILLION on lobbying for legislative favors and tax breaks.

Is it any wonder that so few of our laws make sense anymore?

The pharmaceutical industry's power and influence over government, the field of conventional medicine, and your mind through massive marketing efforts, is in a class of its own. It's just that most people don't realize the staggering magnitude of their financial influence, and therefore are blinded and deceived by the manipulated perception that the industry is "helping mankind."  (emphasis mine...I could not say it better myself.)

*** 

Lobbyists often craft purposefully nebulous language to change the US code to specific ends of industry, and these amendments are then snuck into various bills, which no one read before passing.

...the revolving door between the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and various drug companies and other industries...has done untold damage to public health and health freedom. It is very common for high-ranking FDA officials to get lucrative consulting positions with the drug companies after they quit.  (emphasis mine)

The converse is also very common. Federal officials can get paid millions by the drug companies before they make the switch over to the FDA..."

Enough said...and yet, somehow, it's not enough...there is so much more in this realm that it makes one's head spin.  But for now, this is enough.  I'm going back on break to cogitate and tackle some heretofore neglected essentials.  I leave you with an appeal:  get riled and motivated to effect change in our culture.  Sowing seeds of doubt about the "powers that be" and encouraging questions regarding the status quo are a great place to begin.


EDIT:
I missed this one...my husband pointed out (with a grimace) the irony of the last few seconds of the 60 minutes video.  "Brought to you by Lipitor."  It just never ends...even the journalists (I use that term very loosely) are beholden to the drug companies.

The War Rages...Please Fight for Real Milk and Your Health Rights

I know I said the next few posts were going back to topics other than Real Food, but this is too important to ignore.  I am irate...and as such, will keep my vociferations as brief as possible.  I am utterly disgusted with the latest governmental raw milk witch hunt.  I apologize in advance, but this is going to be rant-like...you've been warned.


Yesterday the CA Dept. of Food and Ag. shut down Organic Pasture's raw milk operation with allegations that five children were infected by e. coli that was "suspected" to come from OP milk.  Samples of the milk that those children consumed have tested negative for e. coli.  Read more here:



Organic Pastures News Release


ABC Fresno Report


This is a war, my friends.  Our government, based on nothing more than corporate interests, wants to deny you access to raw milk.  The fear-mongering is becoming more intense, the allegations and intrusions more vigorous.  For years, these battles have been raging; the Real Food "little guys" have been fighting goliath...it isn't getting any easier, and it isn't going away.  


This is not the first time Organic Pastures has been under the gun with governmental agencies.  The grass-based raw dairy weathered the storm five years ago when falsely accused of selling milk infected with malevolent e. coli.  And in 2009, the FDA tried to get California to shut down OP permanently.  It isn't enough that our government has already banned interstate sales of real milk...the goal is to eradicate raw milk sales altogether.


The powers that be want absolute control over our lives, our choices...and they will cheat and lie to achieve that end.  The corrupt, meddling industrial food and medical interests (led by the FDA and its state agency cronies) will stop at nothing to achieve its goals.  This is an outrage, because the FDA operates as a power unto itself...untouchable...using its authority to change the rights of every American.  For these unelected "regulatory" agencies to exert such control is anathema to the very foundations of this country's originally established governmental system.  These agency actions are a violation of our rights in every way.


Why am I so upset?  Is it really such a big deal?  OP will win this skirmish, too, right?  In my mind, this is not a small affair.  It is another fissure in our already crumbling personal freedom fortress.  Certainly we have no guarantee that right will win the day...it simply does not work that way anymore in our overblown, corporate-run government.  The "agents of regulation" are not on our side.


Raw milk is not the only victim of the FDA's wrath.  The agency is currently working on another way to considerably limit public access to supplements.  Again, this particular fight is not new, just increasingly ugly.  Our freedom of choice...and the ability of the free market to operate...will be significantly diminished if the FDA enacts its proposed revised guidelines for "new dietary ingredients" (NDI).  


Currently, our access to supplements is protected primarily by the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA).  But if the FDA has its way, bringing to market any new ingredient (since 1994) will be so onerously expensive for companies that very few could be able to do so.  Except, of course...drumroll please...pharmaceutical companies.  Ah, I didn't really expect you to be surprised.  I know it shouldn't, but the cronyism never ceases to amaze me.  If you do not already understand the depths of depravity in the pharmaceutical industry, I regret my inability to enlighten you now.  Suffice it to say that it will not be a good thing when pharmaceutical companies have unmitigated control...and they desire nothing less.


Please visit the Alliance for Natural Health to learn more about this threat to your health freedom and what actions you can take against yet another draconian FDA move.


So, I come to the end of today's fulmination.  We see raging before us the war on personal freedom, on food freedom, on health freedom.  What can we do?  I'm not sure...it seems we now have so little power and control over our own fates in this country.  Will contacting congressional members really stem the tide of these and future violations?  Considering the corruption deeply embedded in our government, I put no trust in the system.  But we must fight...raise our voices, refuse to comply...be awake, aware, contend against complacency.


I am a tiny voice...truly insignificant in this realm.  But I am contributing my voice and entreating you to care, to learn and to fight.

Salatin on the Value of Real Food

Before I became a "real food crusader" of sorts, before I was utterly sold-out and committed "all in" to real food, I was a food snob.  Ah, I can hear some groans now.  Terrible habit, some may say...hard on the pocket-book!  Not so, I say...Pay now or pay later.  Yes, I was first a health nut, then a food snob.  The lure of gourmet was simply too great.  I just love food; and I believed, before I even understood all the implications of a real food lifestyle, that food should nourish and it should taste good.  Food is more than sustenance, it is medicine...and it is one of the physical joys of the human experience.  At least, it should be.  Hence, the food snobbery.  


And now we enter the "real foodie" realm; while the labels may change and nuances of underlying motivations evolve, the desire for quality food remains.  Some people, as they shift from their S.A.D industrial food habits toward a nourishing food lifestyle, bemoan the cost of real food.  I can sympathize.  The fact is that certain categories of real food cost more.  It really isn't the fruits and veggies that cause financial pain, it is the animal foods and the premade/processed foods.  We can save money simply by creating meals at home from scratch using whole food ingredients...otherwise known as cooking.  (ie: Don't buy from the "hot food" deli at Whole Foods.)  When we reclaim the kitchen, we save in our food budgets.  But, yes, even with home-cooked meals using simple, natural ingredients, the prices for real meat, fish, poultry, milk, eggs and butter exceed those of their bastardized counterparts.



American consumers, comfortably accustomed to the typical American diet, are somewhat anesthetized to the real cost of food.  It isn't all our fault, either.  Our government, using taxpayer money, has created unrealistic consumer expectations.  Government subsidies of commodity crops and big-ag farming has artificially deflated food prices for years.  Ultimately, this is an unsustainable ruse; if current economic conditions are an indicator, the charade won't last forever.  Nevertheless, Americans are used to cheap food, and they experience sticker shock when entering the realm of real food.  Ironically, some consumers cannot seem to grasp the quality/cost analysis.  My husband likes to relay Joel Salatin's story of a farmer's market customer who scoffed at paying $3 for a dozen organic, pastured eggs while she sipped her $.75 can of bubbly corn syrup poison (my summary of the story).



Frankly, all that "cheap" food is not cheap at all...it is quite costly.  The human body cannot be sustained on junk; at some point, somehow, the physical reaping will occur.  [I define junk as any industrial/conventionally/chemically produced food and processed/adulterated foods.]  In the end, we save money by living a real food lifestyle, because we have fewer long-term health problems.  Think of all the drugs, supplements, procedures, etc. that people spend money on (not to mention the suffering caused by the ailments)...  Now, imagine how that can dissipate as people eat pure food meant to nourish and heal.  Five dollars a pound for organic, grass-fed beef doesn't seem so bad weighed against bottles of pills in the medicine cabinet.  As a society, we spend millions on health care...for ailments directly related to the way we eat...and we complain about the cost of real food?  We need to understand and accept that real food may cost more, but it is worth more.  


Aside from the legitimate value of real food, we need to become comfortable with paying real food farmers a living wage.  The people who produce the food that sustains, nourishes and heals us deserve to be paid for their labor.  As a group, farmers are woefully under-compensated.  [I can promise you, as a fledgling "homesteader," that raising real food is extremely difficult and costly work.]  One of the hidden costs of American's cheap industrial food is the financial plight of farmers.  It seems we want our food, we want it cheap, and we don't care about the consequences...to ourselves, to the environment, to the farmers...  This is an insupportable perspective.  We are far too removed from the production of our food, especially our animal foods.  I like to believe that if consumers knew the truth about how their food was raised and processed (what the animals eat, the conditions in which they live, how they are killed/processed)...everything that was done to it before it entered their mouths (sometimes including being irradiated and pumped full of ammonia)...they would never purchase industrial food.  The truth is downright scary and disgusting...don't tell your kids before bed or discuss it at dinner!  (LOL)



None of us is perfect; we all cheat once in a while...  But cheating with industrial food is far different from a lifetime of eating it.  The deleterious effects are innumerable.  And the more ugly truths we learn about industrial food, the less inclined we are to cheat.  In the end, real food doesn't cost more...it is just a matter of time, perspective and priorities.  If I were struggling to afford real food for my family, I would eliminate every possible extraneous expense...I would change any and every financial outlay before I would compromise on the health, vitality and nourishment of my family.  It's just that important.  I'm not claiming this is always an easy practice, but that we need...as a culture...to re-examine how we think about food and its true costs.


But enough of my thoughts on the matter...



A year ago (or so), I wrote to food crusader and real food farmer Joel Salatin and asked him if he would share some pearls of wisdom regarding the costs of real food.  For anyone not "in the know," Salatin is the sustainable, eco-ag, pasture-based Virginia farmer made famous by Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma.  A seasoned farmer, prolific author, speaker and real food activist, Salatin has the experience and passion to stand at the fore of our current cultural food fight.


Joel was kind enough to reply to my request, but did not have the time to write an original piece.  He did, however, give me permission to share an article he wrote on the subject, originally published by Flavor Magazine.  So without further ado, I present to you:


*****
Foodie Elitism ... Rebel with a Cause
by Joel Salatin

Because high quality local food often carries a higher price tag, the charge of elitism is often vitriolic (from the industrial foodists) and agonizingly embarrassing (from the foodies). Instead of cowering in self-guilt, let’s confront this higher sticker price head on.

First, it’s better food. It tastes better. It handles better. It’s safer. Anyone buying chemicalized, drug-infused food is engaging in risky behavior. But it’s also nutritionally superior. For those willing to see, the science of conjugated linoleic acid, vitamins, minerals, brix readings, omega 3-omega 6 ratios, and polyunsatured fat profiles are empirically superior. Better stuff is worth more.

Second, economies of scale will continue to progress as more people patronize local food. The collaborative aggregation and distribution networks fine-tuned by mega-food companies can and will be duplicated locally as volume and creativity work their magic.

Third, eating unprocessed is the best way to combat high food prices, regardless of source. You can buy a 10 pound bag of potatoes for the price of a pound of potato chips. Cultivating domestic culinary arts and actually discovering the kitchens we’ve sacrificially remodeled and gadgetized can wean all of us away from expensive processed food. A whole pound of our farm’s grass-finished ground beef costs less than a Happy Meal. Guess which one has more nutrition?

Fourth, nonscalable government regulations inordinately discriminate against smaller processing businesses (abattoirs, kitchens, canneries) because inappropriate paperwork and infrastructure requirements cannot be spread over as much volume. This creates price prejudice at the community-based scale and inhibits entrepreneurs from entering local food commerce.

Fifth, diversified farms like ours do not receive government subsidies. And our food production, processing, and marketing do not create collateral damage. What is the value of a Rhode Island-sized dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico? Who pays for the cleanup? Who pays for MRSA? Type II diabetes? Stinky rural neighborhoods?

Sixth—and this is where I wanted to head with this discussion—plenty of money exists in the system to pay for good food. Can you think of anything people buy that doesn’t have to be purchased? Tobacco, $100 designer jeans with holes already in the knees, KFC, high fructose corn syrup soft drinks, Disney vacations, TVs, baby food. I won’t belabor the list, but if you took all the unnecessary baubles and junk food people buy, it would total plenty for everyone to eat like kings. We could all be elitists.

We could create a suburb of Lake Wobegon, where all the people ate food that was above average. Almost everyone I know who owns a Community Supported Agriculture share could purchase an extra one for an impoverished family. And if you had to give up a few $4 lattes to do it, what a pity.

This winter, the Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute invited me to come to Ft. Collins, Colorado, and do a community speech as a fundraiser. They filled a huge community theater with people that paid my travel and honorarium . . . with enough left over to buy 40 CSA shares for poor families in their community. They didn’t wait for a government program. What a wonderfully empowering local effort. Perhaps nothing would reduce elitism perceptions faster than foodies buying CSA shares for impoverished families.

At the risk of sounding uncharitable, I think we need to quit being victims and change ourselves. Don’t complain about being unable to buy high quality local food when your grocery cart is full of beer, cigarettes, and People magazine. Most people are more connected to the celebrities in People than the food that will become flesh of their flesh and bone of their bones at the next meal.

We can all do better. If we can find money for movies, ski trips, and recreational cruises, surely we can find the money to purchase integrity food. The fact is that most of us scrounge together enough pennies to fund the passion of our hearts. If we would cultivate a passion for food like we’ve cultivated it for clothes, cars, and entertainment, perhaps we would ultimately live healthier, happier lives.

The other day I saw precooked bacon in a box at the supermarket—for $30 a pound. Do we really have to buy precooked bacon? If you took the average shopping cart and tossed out all the processed food—everything with a label item you can’t pronounce or make in your kitchen, and everything that won’t rot—and substituted instead locally sourced, fresh items, you would be money ahead and immensely healthier.

To suggest that such a change makes me an elitist is to disparage positive decision making and behavior. Indeed, if that’s elitism, I want it. The victim mentality our culture encourages actually induces guilt into people making progress. That’s crazy. We should applaud positive behavior and encourage others to follow suit, not demonize and discourage it. Would it be better to applaud people who buy amalgamated, reconstituted, fumigated, irradiated, genetically modified industrial garbage?

The charge of elitism is both unfair and silly. We foodies are cultural change agents, positive innovators, integrity seekers. So hold your head high and don’t apologize for making noble decisions.

*****
More of Joel's thoughts regarding the real costs of food can be gleaned from his book, The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer.

Sifting Information with a Critical Eye...

[This post is dedicated to a friend who once queried me regarding the elements of research. Thank you for inspiring me to share...]

Knowledge is power, we have been told...and knowledge comes from ingesting information. But how do we discern facts and draw appropriate conclusions? Facts are funny things...just look at revisionist history. Truth often is stranger than fiction (thank you, Mr. Twain). Yet how often do we suspect that the version of truth we are being told is something other than the facts? I believe this is where we need to employ those vitally important critical thinking skills.


Thinking critically and examing the information presented are paramount to our ability to determine verity. We need to become "information specialists" to deconstruct establishment "facts" that may not contain absolute truth. A favorite tactic used by the "powers that be" to sway public opinion is fear-mongering, whose primary elements include misinformation, fact manipulation, half-truths and sometimes, outright lies. The secret to fear-mongering's influence lies in a general public that lacks knowledge and discernment. The enemy of a fear-mongering campaign is the dissemination of thorough and valid information.

In the real food realm, we watch the on-going war against raw milk. As regulatory agencies and industrial interests attempt to control and eliminate our access to real milk, we see the employment of "official" doctrine that denounces this natural food and intimidates its consumers. Should we be afraid? Is raw milk a public health hazard? The FDA and CDC would like us to believe so. But what is the basis of their accusations? We need to scrutinize the warnings; read like investigators. Good journalists (no, that is not always an oxymoron, LOL) are taught to look beyond the surface, to question, to sift. Let us do so before digesting the position we are being fed. We tell our children, "you can't believe everything you read;" do we practice what we preach?

Before facing an onslaught of regulatory propaganda, we need to examine our personal presuppositions. There seems to be a general societal belief that regulatory agencies and medical institutions are authoritative, accurate and honest. I do not share that presupposition, which impacts my view of information coming from those sources. What are your presuppositions? How do they affect your study and conclusions? A cacophony of voices vie for dominance on this topic...I am not here to represent varied viewpoints. Rather, I desire to reveal holes I see in the conventional presentation of "facts;" I encourage you to sift with your critical eye.

The example I want to use for our sifting exercise comes from the CDC's cache of articles warning the public about the "dangers" of raw milk. It's downright scary stuff!

The first page of the CDC's warning against real milk, Food Safety and Raw Milk, is a good example of factual ambiguity. The article offers sweeping statements backed by little data, and no detailed case studies. The CDC's representation of pasteurization history is misleading, containing half-truths that lack full disclosure. The agency's version of history allows the reader to infer that the milk just arbitrarily became bacteria-laden (or was dangerous all along, and miraculously, we survived it for multiple milennia) and needed to be cooked to spare the public from such a dangerous food.

Additionally, notice that the article does not differentiate between proper raw milk and the other options. Healthy real milk comes from vibrant, grass-fed, free-roaming, sunshine-drenched cows. Drinking raw milk from an industrial (or even small-operation) grain-based, confinement dairy is a recipe for illness. More on this later...  The CDC does not include any exhortations regarding the folly of the dirty dairy industry, nor does the "safety advisory" enlighten the reader to the harm caused by feeding cows grains, corn and soy (not to mention eliminating the animals' opportunity to exercise, fresh air and direct sunlight).  The article neglects to inform readers that industrial dairies routinely feed cows grains as a primary calorie source.  And did the CDC mention anywhere that feeding cows corn actually contributes to e. coli infections?  No.  Am I surprised?  No.  But that is a crucial piece of information in the raw milk illness puzzle, is it not?

Moving on...  The Q&A section of the CDC's raw milk "safety" data contains a slew of misinformation, including more of the aforementioned misleading pasteurization history and additional misinformation regarding the deleterious health effects of pasteurizing milk. At every turn, the answers contain only one version of the story...the opponent's version; and its version is sorely lacking detailed data. As if you are too busy to be bothered or perhaps too unintelligent to comprehend a complete set of facts? The CDC would like you to believe that it is a bastion of truth and that its information is trustworthy. But the agency is neither presenting the full spectrum of available information, nor sharing completely accurate and honest data.

When I first began composing this post more than a month ago, the testimonial videos you now see on the main page had not been added. Watching the videos confirms my assessment of the CDC's purpose and its manipulation of the "facts." I will comment only on the first testimonial. First, please understand me...I sympathize with this mother and the pain her family suffered. I do not take that child's suffering lightly, nor would I desire to see anyone suffer in such a way. I am not criticizing this mother for her reaction. But for the sake of deconstructing the story's educational merit, I am pointing out its flaws. Again, I am not suggesting that the mother's emotions are insignificant and illegitimate.

First, observe in the video one of the still images (chosen by the CDC to "recreate events..." though "not of the actual events or people") shows a cow being milked by hand in a beautiful green pasture. This is a carefully crafted, not-too-subtle attempt at emotional manipulation that equates the raw milk being discussed in the story with all real milk, especially the family farm, free-range, pasture-based variety. It is unlikely that the majority of raw milk consumers are purchasing their milk from small backyard, pasture-based herds where farmers or cow owners are hand milking. (We hand milk two goats and I can assure you it is not easy work. I know people with only one cow who use milking machines rather than hand milk.)

Remember, it is easier to manipulate an unenlightened populace; perhaps American consumers, even though they are learning the wonderful truth about real milk, are as yet unaware of how that milk is produced. This is something we need to change to be truly informed consumers. We are too far from our food to understand it fully. Organic Pastures, the nation's leader in excellent-quality real milk, is a good resource for understanding the process and benefits of real milk. [And as much as I love to dream of the idyllic days of peaceful, pastured cows being happily hand-milked, even OP uses milking machines; I doubt any commercial operation could afford to do otherwise.]

My point, which may have been obscured by my commentary, LOL, is that the image of the hand-milked, pastured cow is designed to cause the viewing public to believe that we all are the potential victims of poison raw milk coming from small-operation, grass-based, free-range, hand-milked cows. The image is not factually linked in any way to the story being related. As a matter of fact, no details about the milk's source were shared at all.

Notice, also, the other still photo used that includes the background of green grass...the boy drinking the quart of milk. These images irritate me because of their blatant subtext. The overall purpose to the "story" is to discredit pasture-based raw dairies and cause the public to fear them. The imagery is designed to evoke subtle emotions, manipulatively creating negative responses to "pasture." I studied such techniques in my media history courses...these methodologies are routinely used in propaganda whose goal is to indoctrinate; the effect takes place on a subconscious level, and the effect can be lasting.

Getting back to the narrative details of the video, note that the source of the illness-causing raw milk was not revealed, nor were the particulars of the cows' lifestyle and the operation of the dairy. Was it a grain-based, confinement operation? How were the cows milked?  What is the sanitation routine of the milker?  These details are important aspects in the assessment of whether raw milk is safe and nourishing. We cannot understand the case fully without full disclosure of the details. Hopefully, by now most raw milk consumers know that not all raw milk is equal. It is erroneous for the CDC or anyone else to act as if and instruct as if it is.

The remainder of the video highlights the emotions of the mother regarding her child's serious bout with malevolent e. coli, and ends with her expressed opinion that raw milk should not be available to consumers because the risks outweigh any benefits. Watching a mother's agony is heart-wrenching...and the editors of the video know that. Beyond understanding that aspect of the video's design, I want people to see, as they digest the information presented in the video, that no real information was shared at all regarding the details of the source and/or handling of the allegedly contaminated milk. (I say allegedly not to suggest that it is impossible for milk to be contaminated with dangerous e. coli, but only to emphasize that the narrative never provides any proof that the milk was contaminated and therefore isolated as the only possible cause of the boy's illness.)

Finally, while I understand the emotions of the mother in the story, I absolutely disagree with her final assessment that the American public should not be able to buy and consume raw milk. Despite the FDA, CDC and other government entities' insistence to the contrary, we have a right to choose for ourselves what to eat and drink. Just because the FDA does not believe Americans have the right to health and food choice, does not make it so.  That agency is a government organization that works for us...it does not have dictatorship privileges, despite appearances to the contrary. Besides, raw milk is not the only food in existence that could possibly cause illness. Should we outlaw every offender? For there are far worse offenders than real milk!

If we impose this mother's logic (and our government's desires) on a broader scale, many lifestyle choices, foods, activities, pharmaceuticals, medical procedures, etc. should immediately be outlawed because of their danger to the public's health.  (How about cigarettes?)

We have a right, as free individuals, to exercise personal responsibility. We are not wards of a nanny state. We do not need to be saved from ourselves. (And good grief, we are talking about FOOD here! Sorry...)

If you read enough CDC, USDA, FDA et al. advisories, you will be overwhelmed with fear of everyday life. Warning!...don't eat, don't breathe, don't leave the house! According to those agencies and various players in the medical industry, your body is constantly subject to an onslaught of dangerous germs and harmful bacteria to which you are destined to fall prey. Yet, ask yourself...is this a completely accurate paradigm? It certainly isn't mine...I do not believe that a healthy system falls prey to every malevolent microbe that comes along. And on top of that, I allow my children to use the seesaw at the playground! (Whenever we can find one, since they have gone the way of the dinosaur in our accident-fearing, litigious society...sorry, I digress. LOL)

Here's a fact that you won't see our illustrious government agencies heralding. Mass producing food on an industrial scale causes harm. Your first line of defense in avoiding food-borne illness is to eschew industrial food. You also need to naturally build your body's immune system and pursue a health-promoting lifestyle.

Honest representation of all the facts involved allows consumers to make truly informed decisions. If the CDC genuinely cared about educating the public and seeing people thrive, it would provide all facets of the truth. The articles would talk about how raw milk could become contaminated with microbes that could cause illness (including the care and feeding of dairy cows, and the milking process). The advisories would educate the public regarding the hows and whys of such illness and what you can do to avoid it. Even the proponents of real milk will tell you the truth about existing potential of illness, and what consumers can do to avoid it. For example, from a recent Mercola article about raw milk:

Research by Dr. Ted Beals, MD, featured in the summer 2011 issue of Wise Traditions, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation, shows that you are about 35,000 times more likely to get sick from other foods than you are from raw milk! Statistically, you're also more likely to get injured driving to the farm to pick up your raw milk than becoming ill from drinking it.

Dr. Beals' research shows that between 1999 and 2010, there was an average of 42 cases of illness per year attributed to raw milk, and that includes both "confirmed" and "presumed" cases. 

"From the perspective of a national public health professional looking at an estimated total of 48 million foodborne illnesses each year [from all foods]… there is no rational justification to focus national attention on raw milk, which may be associated with an average of 42 illnesses maximum among the more than nine million people (about 0.0005 percent) who have chosen to drink milk in its fresh unprocessed form.…

Consumption of any food has some risk of illness or adverse reaction. And the consequence of basing public policy on horrific personal experiences is that all foods will ultimately be banned, and we will not be able to participate in any activity."If this isn't food for thought, I don't know what is. These statistics are the smoking gun proving that the war on raw milk cannot be based on food safety or protecting your health from an even remotely real threat…

Mercola's assessment is spot on...I won't try to say it better. (For the record, I don't agree with everything Mercola says or does, but I think his site is an excellent research resource with valuable information that is often correct.) Read the entire article to understand the differences among raw milk, and compare what you read there with the information presented by the CDC. Then, when continuing to sift through the fear-mongerish and vague information presented by the CDC, FDA, etc. on this topic, consider:

Where are the news alerts to the public warning them against conventional medical care, drugs and surgeries? If the agency is truly concerned about public welfare and safety, they should be exhorting us to be wary of the medical industry, whose iatrogenic (illness caused by medical exam or treatment) death rate is estimated to exceed 700,000 yearly. But I doubt we'll see the medical industry or any governmental agency pulling back the covers on that bit of ugliness anytime soon.

So let's just examine the perspective here...raw milk may potentially cause 42 illnesses a year, and according to the CDC has caused two deaths in 10 years. Again, I am not belittling the suffering of the victims. But just do the math. The CDC wants to outlaw real milk, wants you to fear it, and reports two deaths in ten years caused by it. But the medical industry kills THOUSANDS of people yearly... Hmmm...maybe we need to refocus the lens here?!

Considering the facts, is it really raw milk that poses a danger to the American public? Is it so dangerous that it needs to be outlawed? Should not the same logic (protecting the public from health harm) be used against the medical industry and its bosom buddy regulators? Where was our government's fire in the belly when Vioxx was killing nearly 28,000 Americans? Oh wait, I said that last time...well, perhaps it bears repeating. According to CDC and FDA doctrine, we are to vilify and fear raw milk, yet trust and admire Merck? This defies reason.

Rabbit trail warning...
Our overgrown government and its dictatorial agencies fundamentally do not believe that we have the right to choose what food we eat (in addition to other personal freedom violations). I find this ironic, considering that they have no problem ensuring grocery store shelves are stocked to the brim with unhealthy, illness-causing franken-food stuffs. But real food? Watch out, that's dangerous...you need the nanny state to protect you from that! I don't know about you, but I am not a ward of the state. I believe it is inherently wrong for the government to tell me what to eat, just as it would be wrong for the government to dictate what I believe.

If a government body is going to regulate away your ability to eat a particular food (or deny a particular freedom that is yours by Natural Right), you have a right to know why...and "it's too dangerous, we're protecting you from yourself, trust us," is not good enough. What might the outcome be if we all said no to the nanny state and refused to be infantilized? These agencies, if they were acting in the public good, would desire to educate consumers, not illegitimately scare them and regulate away their natural rights. In whose best interest are these agencies acting?

Read enough about any health and food issue, and you will begin to see the pattern...big industry and controlling government targets the underdog...seek and destroy. Time and again, it is John Doe organic farmer selling to Suzy Q. Public who receives regulatory wrath and bullying. Monsanto, Cargill, Tyson, Dean Foods, et al seem to get a free pass. Oh, I forgot...they make the rules. But I have digressed enough for today...

Back to reading critically....
I shared the CDC "raw milk warning" as an example to whet your appetite for further sifting of proclaimed truth. I believe the "information" presented in the CDC articles is intended to keep you ignorant and scared. Please don't let it. Demand details. Don't subscribe to someone else's version of reality (even, or rather, especially a government agency's) until you have studied it thoroughly (using varied sources and viewpoints) and are convinced that it is accurate.

Don't accept pat answers...demand data. For example, when scrutinizing a case of negative effects attributed to raw milk, ask what was consumed, from where, from what conditions, by whom and what exactly happened? I am not saying that people could not become ill from raw milk...neither are the champions of the cause. I am saying that we deserve full disclosure if we are to thoroughly understand the potential harms and how we can avoid them; and I am saying that despite any potential harms, outlawing raw milk is not a legitimate or fair option.  When contemplating the attacks upon raw milk and the information being presented in favor of outlawing it, consider the myriad more harmful foods, drugs and procedures not being targeted...and ask yourself why, and who benefits? Finally, if the CDC is willing to parade such slanted, vague and manipulative information as absolute fact in this realm, where else do you think it might employ such tactics?

So, to conclude my ramblings on research and information assessment, I encourage you to perform your own study...ask your own questions...examine what is being said and what is not being said...study claims and their bases...draw your own conclusions. That's freedom. Perhaps your interpretation will be different from mine...that is your individual right. What I am promoting is that you do not believe the establishment just because it tells you to. Examine carefully the information being presented and the claims being made.

The truth is not complicated; we need to stop accepting the complexification of simple things. One of society's downfalls is that we have become a people who no longer think. We trust "experts" far too much and believe what they tell us.

I would rather that we all become our own experts...but you know that already! Cheers!


For further study

Death by Medicine stats
More Death by Medicine myriad links
Raw milk pathogen facts
Mercola article about safety of raw milk
CDC "Food Safety and Raw Milk"

Organic Pastures grass-based, free-range dairy

The Untold Story of Milk by Ron Schmid

The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America's Emerging Battle Over Food Rights by D. Gumpert

FDA Lunacy...Attacks on Real Food and Real Birth

This installment of Radically Natural Living is brought to you by the popularly overworn phrase, "Seriously?!  [Warning: the information contained within this post mingles with some sarcastic incredulousness.]


Today we are going to look at a couple examples of how our government regulatory agencies are crossing the line and continuing to erode our liberties not only as Americans, but as human beings.  For those of you who read Real Food blogs, the first item will not be news.  But I believe it important to broadly disseminate the truth about the Real Food culture war so that more Americans can be spurred to thought and action.



I have no intention of re-inventing the wheel here, so I will link to the articles that have already described the recent outrageous behaviour of our government agencies.  Please read and pass along....

"You're under arrest!"

If you were unaware, on August 3,  the FDA and CDC raided an organic raw milk buying club in southern California.  The owner was arrested, as was an organic farm owner and her employee (who also happens to be a WAPF chapter leader).  These people were charged as felons.  That's right, felons.  And the food was confiscated and/or destroyed.  OK, say it with me now...Seriously?!  


This is about food!  Real Food!  Raided...arrested...charged...confiscated...destroyed...!  Food and the people providing it!  Food made available to a public that wants to consume it!  That knowingly chooses to buy and consume it!  This is criminal activity in our country?!  Seriously?  You have got to be kidding!  This is the best use of our society's resources (time and taxpayer money)?  Arresting and prosecuting organic farmers and food sellers?  Wasting resources in a continued attempt to outlaw a simple, pure, natural food?!  How is this anything other than lunacy?


We have allowed our government, which was to be of the people, by the people, to grow into a beast that believes it has the right to control everything we do, including what we eat.  The simplest thing like choosing Real Food is now a battleground, complete with a criminal trial.  Among a long list of other offenses, the FDA and the CDC constantly bombard the public with manipulative messages that raw milk is dangerous...we must save you from yourselves...it could kill you!  (*We will look more closely at the basis of these claims in my next post.) These taxpayer-funded agencies (and others) have become dictators.  The FDA has actually said that Americans have no right to any particular food, nor the right to physical health!  Seriously?!  Don't take my word for it...read the brief for yourself.  The behaviour and policies of the FDA are egregiously offensive and fundamentally wrong.

Grass-fed organic raw milk

First of all, we do not need to be saved from ourselves...we have every right, endowed to us by our Creator and affirmed by natural law, to make our own decisions, especially regarding what food we eat.  We have become a culture so accustomed to being controlled by nanny government agencies that we have forgotten what liberty is.  And now that we are here, will we willingly remain?  Where is our American revolutionary spirit?  Our love for independence?  We need to go back and read our nation's founding documents.


Secondly, even if, through improper farming/milking practices, raw milk were to have a negative impact on a few individuals, that in no way comes close to the despicable damage, illness and death being caused by the industrial franken-foods and pharma drugs that are regularly pushed on American consumers.  Where are the raids on the processed food aisles of American grocery stores and their pharmacies?!  Why is the FDA not confiscating and destroying palettes of corn-syrup-ladened, adulterated, modified, fake food...the stuff that is causing millions of Americans to suffer with chronic illness and early death?!  Regulatory agencies certainly are not inhibiting people's freedom to stuff themselves full of soda, alcohol, twinkies, corn chips, cigarettes and psychotropics.  


If the free market were allowed to regulate itself and consumers continued to become educated about how Real Food needs to be produced (ie: don't drink raw milk from grain-fed, confined cows; and make sure you know your local farmer and insist he use sanitary milking conditions or he loses your business), we would have a plethora of safe Real Food available to all the people who desired it.  


Our government allows and encourages Americans to poison themselves regularly with "regulation-approved" foods (I use the term loosely) and drugs.  Why the blatant attempt to remove Real Food from our spectrum of choices?  Various theories have been postulated, the answer is undoubtedly multifaceted.  One factor I believe fundamental to the discussion is the potential loss of profit to the commercial dairy industry.  As more Americans become independently educated about Real Food and responsible farming practices, they will begin to expose the dirty dairy industry for what it is...and eschew its products.  The desire to keep consumers in the dark and protect their ability to irresponsibly, inhumanely and unhealthily produce food is the likeliest reason that industrial ag-friendly lawmakers have introduced bills to make it illegal to photograph farms.  


This is out of control.  The expenditure of taxpayer resources to attack Real Food and its producers/sellers...the absolute abuse of power...when there are actually real criminals at foot, perpetrating real crimes against humanity every day...it defies reason.  Where was the FDA when Vioxx was killing thousands of Americans?! 

My first birth tub (Target kiddie pool)

In another gestapo move, the FDA in late May raided an Oregon warehouse and confiscated inflatable birth pools...the kind that many of us have used to enjoy the numerous benefits of home waterbirth.  And it gets worse.  The FDA actually stated that pregnancy is an illness and that birth tubs are an illegal medical device.  Seriously?!  What's next?  Confiscating and destroying all the blow-up kiddie pools at Target?  Outlawing pregnancy altogether?  Oh, wait...that would damage the profitable medicalized birth industry.  Rather, let's just continue to erode freedom of birth choice and force-funnel all women into the technocratic factory birth system.  Make no mistake my friends, this is a war; this latest FDA lunacy is only one battle.

Second birth tub, a la waterbirth.org

[Ladies, pregnancy is NOT an illness...normal birth is NOT dangerous...you are not a broken machine requiring modern technology and regulation to save you and your baby from yourself.  The rare exceptions to normal pregnancy/birth are no reason to create an illegitimate birth climate that views this natural and beautiful process as something to be feared and medically managed.  No government agency, nor doctor has the right to tell you how to birth ... to restrict your freedom of choice in how you bring your children into this world.  Nor should we continue to allow the industry to perpetrate fraud upon women, convincing us that there is no other way but the industry's way.]


These agency actions against food and birth choices cut to the core of a civil and human liberties battle that should enrage us all.  Why, as a culture, have we chosen to acquiesce to such dictatorial treatment by governmental agencies?  These people work for us!  But this is the America in which we all now live.  And I ask again, why are we allowing this?  


Lest we believe that we need all these "protections" and that we must inherently trust these agents of control, we should remind ourselves that control is exerted more often through fear-mongering than through honest examination and revelation of fact.  (*More on this in my next post.)  


Some final food for thought (yes, yes...pun intended):  If the FDA is truly concerned for the welfare of Americans and desires to catch the bad guys, perhaps it should turn its gaze inward.


I will leave you with these cogitations for today...please, share and discuss amongst yourselves.


For further reading:
The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America's Underground Food Movements
Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front
The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America's Emerging Battle Over Food Rights
The Untold Story of Milk
Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First
Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care
Web links:
Real Food Media
Organic Pastures Raw Grass-fed Dairy
Eat Wild
Real Milk
Raw Milk Facts
Waterbirth Int'l

Midwifery Today
The Unnecesarean

You Are What You Eat...Another Look

Because this message bears repeating, and repeating, and repeating...

If you want to know why you...why we as a society...are sick, you need look no further than what you put into your body...what you eat, drink, breathe, what you inject into your children, what pills you swallow, what chemicals you use to clean your house and spray on your lawn. The list is endless. The century-long experiment of “better living” through chemistry and industrial food has borne out to be a failure, and we the guinea pigs are paying the price.


The answer to the chronic illness riddle is simple. We have the food industry and the chemical industry to thank for our common plight. Modern medicine does not have the answer; it, too, is part of the problem. It cannot heal our ailments and cure our diseases...not only from inability, but also from lack of motivation...sickness is more profitable than health. And modern "chemical" cures are no cure at all.

The only way to solve the “sickness” dilemma is to take back your body and your environment. You must become responsible for what you do to yourself.

There is no better time than now to become educated and to fight for our rights to real food, clean air and water, freedom from government-imposed “medicine.” Being well and staying well is as simple as eating clean food, avoiding chemical toxicity and pharmaceuticals, and learning to use the natural healing plants created for our benefit. Sadly, the decades-long toxification of our food and environment has created weaknesses and mutations in us all. We cannot turn back the clock overnight and regain our rightful wellness and healthy longevity. But we can, one step at a time, stop the madness that has become our modern industrial way of life.

For too long, the truth has been veiled from consumers. No one knew what they were eating, where the food came from, what corruptions were being perpetrated upon the food that is fundamentally meant to nourish and fuel us. A handful of powerful and wealthy corporations control and manipulate the food that we eat. These corporations put profit ahead of all other considerations; they have absolutely no regard, no respect for all the creatures involved in the web. The misery and illness fueled by the food industry merely profits the powerful medical industry. And the icing on this cake of corruption is that the regulatory agencies meant to protect us are run by and influenced for the corporations that profit from poisoning us.

Yet, we let them. So who is truly at fault? It’s time to lift the veil; it’s time to stop advancing the system with our financial support. It’s time to take back the control that belongs to each of us and is enacted by each of us with every choice we make. Do not participate in the system. Vote with your fork; educate yourself on getting well and living well; lose the lack of confidence that makes you easy prey for corporate fear-mongering. Don’t be a sucker for advertising. Don’t trust the government; don’t trust the mainstream media; don’t trust pharma and the doctors it breeds. This all requires effort and a shunning of ignorance. It is not a monumental feat. It is our human responsibility.

Your health starts from the ground up. Learn what this means and how conventional/synthetic farming practices destroy the soil that is meant to nourish us. If you want to be well, body and soul, avoid all industrial food...the pasteurized, processed, denuded, chemically poisoned, genetically corrupted, irradiated, disgustingly abused animals and plants, “foodstuffs” grown in dead, synthetic soil. Don’t assume that an “organic” label will save you. Government manipulation and greed-driven compromises abound in that industry, too.

Understand that there is little "truth" in labeling. The “law” allows hundreds of synthetics to hide within the “natural flavors” category; GMOs foods are not required to be identified; of the 84,000 commercial chemicals used in the U.S., nearly 20,000 of them are allowed to remain unidentified/unlabeled under “secrecy” rules. Some of these secret chemicals are used in children’s products...you and I do not and cannot know what they are and where they are.

The veil is slowly being lifted. We need to demand information and we need to act upon what we learn. What must we do? Eat REAL Food. Support the hard-working farmers who produce clean food. Don’t be blind to government collusion. Demand the truth and deny corporate profit-mongers what they want. The next generations will thank you.

It's All About Trust

I had planned to write a richly referenced treatise on the failures and corruption of the modern medical industry, but as I contemplated the necessary content and examined my purpose in sharing it, a broader message formulated in my mind.  Trust.  Simple word, complex concept.  Blind trust...earned trust...full trust, no trust.  So many facets.

Outside the friends and family who may visit me here, I am an ambiguity.  You don't know me.  Why should you trust me?  I could be a complete lunatic with some smooth phraseology and a nice book list.  I'm not, but you don't know that.  LOL  (This reminds me of a conversation I had with my hubby about "credibility stock."  When I advise someone on a course of treatment or dietary change and they see positive improvement or healing occur, he tells me my "credibility stock" soars.  Nice visual.)

So it causes thoughtful pause...whom do we trust and why?  Whom should we trust and how do we know?  Instead of force-feeding you my point of view, I want to cause you to think...to question.  I want you to dig, to learn, to formulate healthy skepticisms and a nose for half-truths.  For those already in my camp, this message is nothing new.  And I am not in the business of converting staunch objectors...I have neither the time nor the emotional bandwidth to do so.  My message is perhaps most apropos for the seekers.

When it comes to health problems, illness and disease, people often seek "alternatives" after modern medicine has failed them.  These seekers have begun to see a fundamental truth:  modern medicine will continue to fail because it is not a system of healing that can create wellness.  How often do you consult with a conventionally trained doctor that considers your ailment in light of your holistic physiological system and teaches you how to change your lifestyle and diet to create wellness?  How often do they encourage you to learn and take responsibility for your own health so that you do not need them?  How often do they help you to identify the core cause of your chronic illness/ailment and teach you how to achieve healing? How often do they tell you to eschew chemicals and toxins (including drugs), eat Real Food (including saturated fats from pastured animals), spend time outside in direct sunlight without sunscreen, drink the correct amount of water, consume sea salt generously, and reduce your EMF exposure?  How often do they prescribe pure botanical medicine that actually heal bodily systems and boost immunity?  How often do they advise you to cleanse and restore your liver and then teach you how to do it?  How often do they tell you that cancer can be healed...and without toxins? or tell you how to live and eat to avoid getting cancer?  How often do those doctors do much more than "diagnose" and prescribe pharmaceuticals to affect symptomatology?  Drugs don't cure disease.  The drug industry has no vested interest in curing anyone of anything.  Medical mistakes, including prescription drugs kill around 780,000 people annually.*  But I digress......

When you consider the medical establishment and its practices, you should be asking some simple but fundamental questions.  [If it isn't already painfully obvious, I should point out that I will be using "we" to represent our collective modern society.]  Why do we blindly trust doctors (MDs); why do we accept them as the "gods" in the white coats?  Why do we believe that they "know best" and have the answers?  How did the modern allopathic medical system become the dominant option...the authoritative voice...on the medical landscape?  Is their science supreme?  Are their theories and modalities correct?  How and in what are said doctors educated...by whom and why?  How are drugs and procedures tested and approved...and by whom?  Whose interests are served in the outcome?  Are the outcomes honest?  Is the modern medical industry truly a trustworthy system?

I could answer all these questions for you, but it would spoil your fun.  Do your own digging...seek truth and be not afraid of the answers you may find.  As you search, consider this:  Are we, in our technocratic age, so arrogant as to believe that only in the last 100 years of human history we have "gotten it all right?"  I argue that millennia of human history tells us otherwise.

I will close with an anecdote (which, of course, will contain another question).  I encountered someone who came to me for advice in dealing with a significant medical issue.  She was not completely comfortable with the pharmaceutical approach recommended to her by the MD and I took the time to discuss with her the very real dangers of the drug offered to her, as well as to prescribe some herbal and nutritional therapies.  When I told her the history and effects of said drug, she became wide-eyed, somewhat incredulous, and replied, "Oh, but they (the FDA) would never allow that to be given to people if it were dangerous!"  I was so astounded at such naivete that I could not immediately reply.  But her comment typifies an all-too-common mentality of blind trust in the medical establishment and its regulatory agencies.  My new reply, which I must practice, lest I be caught off-guard again in future, is, "Why would you assume such a thing?"

And I will leave you with that thought...or this one:  Why would you...why do you...assume the status quo is the only acceptable route?  Why do you trust the modern medical establishment?  I suggest that before you continue to do so with any level of comfort, that you do some homework.  After that, once you have unearthed what lies beneath well-crafted PR and cleared through the smoke and mirrors, if you still want to place your trust completely in the existing dominant system, just be sure it is earned trust...not blind trust.


For more information on these topics, please watch my Library and Links tabs (which will be compiled as quickly as possible in the next weeks).


*
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/medicine/usamed/deaths.htm
http://www.naturalnews.com/009278.html
http://www.lightparty.com/Health/HealingRegeneration/html/AccidentalDeathPrescriptio.html