USDA: Friend or Genetically Modified Foe?
Bear with me, this is long but informative…read on if you dare.
It is do or let GMOs die time at the United States Department of Agriculture, and they are letting you weigh in on their decision. The USDA’s mission is to utilize public policy, science, and management to provide leadership on food agriculture, and natural resources. Yet organizations like the Center for Food Safety have not been satisfied with their leadership, as is the European Union among other large entities. The current debate revolves around Genetically Engineered (GE) crops that were previously approved by the USDA as safe. But after being sued in 2006 by the Center for Food Safety and with pressure from a multitude of organizations and farmers, they are reviewing their approval of Monsanto’s GE Roundup Ready alfalfa. Now is your time to send them your thoughts on GE crops and their process for approval, but your time to act ends tomorrow, March 3rd!
Genetically Engineered Crops aka “Frankenfood”
Genetically modified organisms have been growing exponentially in the United States since the early 2000s in the field of agriculture. Some argue that Mendel, who originally discovered hybridization and gene characteristics in plants, was in fact creating GE crops. Yet the majority of scientists in the field disagree, they suggest it is when laboratories started manipulating the specific genes within a plant and injecting foreign genetic material. For example, scientists input salmon DNA into tomato plants to increase their cold weather resistance. This type of gene manipulation is what the European Union has banned from their food system and US food exports, calling it “Frankenfood.” While in the US very little of this seething debate was heard and companies such as Monsanto were privately patenting a large variety of seeds they claim as their own.
What are the risks of GE Crops?
For the average consumer, first and foremost your health is at risk. Next is the integrity of our food system as a whole. And of course the larger underlying threat is our ecological system and the long-term irreversible impact GE crops have already had in North America. If you are a farmer, the risks are a hundredfold.
Health
Human health issues always get a great deal of attention, and are often the primary reason action is taken when ecological disaster arises. For GE crops, this is a sensitive issue in the United States. Scientific research originally studying the long-term health impacts of GE crops was put under intense scrutiny by GE crop companies, and ultimately their funding has been revoked or minimized. Their decisive response has been to align themselves with highly respected Universities across North America (since GE crops are not allowed in the majority of developed nations) and fund only GE crop research that would shed a positive light on its nutritional and ecological ‘value’ as the company deems appropriate and favorable. This type of controlled science is unlikely to produce a result that will benefit the general public’s knowledge base and health. The original studies and those conducted in Europe prior to banning GE crops demonstrated an increase in allergies, carcinogens and cancer rates, and an overall increase in chemical build-up in the body’s fatty tissue leading to a variety of health issues.
Food System
Our food system is and has been in great peril since the 1970s food crisis. The major issues such as intensive chemical dependency, unsustainable land use, and unjust farmer-company relationships have sprouted up in literature by Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, and Francis Moore Lappe and movies like Food Inc. Movements revolting against this system, that cry for something more just, such as Slow Food and Slow Money, are only seedlings relative to the extensive power the major corporations hold over our food system in the United States.
History of our Food System
Let’s take a quick look at history to help put the unraveling of our food system into context. In the 1970s the price of oil flew sky high, demolishing the savings of farmers across the Midwest, America’s breadbasket. Their reliance on petroleum to run their machinery and utilize pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers left many families broken and in debt. Major corporations took advantage of their downfall by purchasing their land and designing a deal that would lure debt-ridden farmers under the company’s control. The main strategy was to purchase the land, and then allow the farmer to stay on the land and ‘lease’ it from the company. In return, the farmer would grow the crops the company demanded in the method the company deemed appropriate. The seeds, machinery, and upkeep of the land were all on the farmer and still are today. The United States transformed from a land of opportunity filled with small and medium-sized farms to a privately-owned land that could be yours (partially via lease) for a price.
Manipulation of our Food System
The food system that these companies have manipulated to their best profit margin is dependent upon their crops, their specialized fertilizers, their herbicides, and their desired management practices. GE crops made the monopolization of agriculture all the easier for these companies. Now a company, for example Monsanto, designs a seed that has a special mutation to fight disease and pests. They also design a special herbicide that will kill everything except that special seed. The farmer is now locked into part of the company’s system. They must purchase Monsanto seed, as Monsanto has dictated or aligned with land owners to dictate, and then purchase the Monsanto herbicide since it is the only product on the market that will work with their seed. Did I mention that Monsanto has designed the majority of these seeds to be “terminator” seeds, meaning they only last one season and cannot be saved to be replanted the next summer? This fact alone led to a revolt across all of India. They were outraged that they could not practice seed saving. A practice in the US that gets you on Monsanto’s notorious “Blacklist”, where they block you from customers, other farmers, and buyers of your crop, not a pleasant place to be for farmers who work with large risks of debt in their business.
Profiteers of our Food System Hint: its not you.
These companies also failed to mention two other major factors that will determine a farmer’s profit margin, other than the requirement to be locked into purchasing their products. First, the farmer’s relationship with the land is permanently altered. The companies will dictate the seeds based on desired stocks, their own Research and Development (which they test on farmers, not at their own testing facilities), among other ‘confidential’ factors. Meaning a farmer may be required to grow soy for 10 years straight with no regard to the land’s natural nutrient cycle or capacity. Soy, the one of the largest monocultures in the United States, requires a 5 year replenishment cycle for soil. If you have ever driven through Iowa, you will see miles and miles of soy, year after year. This requires the farmer to pay for large quantities of fertilizer to simulate the land’s nutrient cycle every year. So farmers have not escaped from their main source of vulnerability in the 1970s; the price of oil.
The second major factor is the power companies hold over the grain silos and the price of a crop on particular days. The unethical nature of this initially sounds like a conspiracy theory, but after speaking with farmers in company-infested farm towns, it turns out that it is more than true, it is deeply disturbing. They will purposefully manipulate the price of a crop based on the farmer and their relationship or lack their of with the company, a collaboration among industry giants that keeps farmers out of the marketplace who do not concede to their ‘rules of the game’.
Ecology
GE crops impact on the environment is not understudied, despite companies such as Monsanto’s best efforts. GE crops have been proven to mate with other plants, are not contained by 15 foot high wind barriers (previously deemed suitable by Monsanto, Dupont, and after closed door discussions the USDA), and leave an array of chemicals, unusual residue and genes in the soil beyond conventional agriculture’s significant impact on the land. The most important fact to keep aware of is that GE crops are capable of contaminating organic agriculture, meaning unless every plant is tested there is no way to determine if certified organic food in the US is free from GE crops. Farmer’s have sued Monsanto for contamination and Monsanto has sued farmers claiming patent infringement, every case to date Monsanto has won. Most often because the legal fees and barrage that they throw at the farmers literally put them out of business. The US has not determined sufficient containment procedures, resulting in the contamination of an entire portion of an island in Hawaii. This also means that GE crop seeds are spreading to plants in the wild. Since not all of their seed are terminator seeds, it is an unseen and unknown issue that is slowly creeping through our road ditches and grain spills.
This article’s intent is not to scare you, it is to make you aware of a major issue within our food system. Unfortunately, the budgets of large companies has consistently overridden the concern for the well-being of the general public. GE crops were originally touted as the cure for world hunger and a source for alternative fuel sources to eliminate the need for oil. To date, they have accomplished neither, and in the majority of cases made each issue worse. Mexico’s farmers did not appreciate the US’s ‘aid’ of goodwill terminator seeds when their rural communities tried to harvest their corn crop the following year. Farmer’s to date are more reliant on oil as is their supply chain, than in the 1970s.
The wonder and awe of our scientific games is long gone in the world of GE crops.
Current Debate – Act by March 3rd
If this has you concerned, than I encourage you to review and decide if you would like to take action. You may do so by telling the USDA that you support the Center for Food Safety’s position that GE crops, specifically Monsanto’s GE Roundup Ready alfalfa should not be grown in the United States. Please review the True Food Network’s write-up and sign by tomorrow, March 3rd if you would like to support their efforts. Their website has an overview of the debate and a pre-written letter that you can email through their website.
Shopping Tips
For those of you who would still like to eat your food in good conscience here are some important shopping tips for selecting food.
1) Numbers matter! Check for these hints on your produce at the grocery store:
If it begins with a…
9 = Organically Grown
4 = Conventionally Grown
8=Genetically Engineered
2) The EU has banned GE crops, so although I encourage you to shop locally, seasonally, and to get to know your farmers and food system, EU products outright state that they are not made with GE crops. So feel free to use this as a good guideline. Many companies based in the US have different EU and US brands, selling the GE crops to US markets, so finding EU approved companies isn’t enough. Check the product for information.
3) The Shop non-GMO App for IPhones and consumer guides can be found at The Institute for Responsible Technology
Of course local, organic, seasonal food choices will always help, but you may be surprised (possibly horrified) to learn how GE crops have infiltrated your diet. So I encourage you to read about it, speak out about it, and continue to take an educated stand on this issue. Please note that the US had a national discussion about labeling GE food, but after significant publicity efforts and closed door discussions, the government decided there were no additional dangers. The opposite conclusion the EU reached after their extensive scientific research into the issue.
The United States Department of Agriculture is in the midst of a discussion that will ultimately determine its stance on food safety. What will be your role?
Food Waste
Food waste is one of the most overlooked acts we all partake in, yet it has such a massive impact on so many aspects of our lives. There are so many issues that come from wasting food including the environment, sociological issues or simply hitting our wallets. It’s something that we can’t continue to ignore and have to change our ways if we want to live more sustainably.
The Scary Facts
Food waste may not be evident to many, but it’s happening all the time. Just think about when you got to a restaurant. I’m sure many of you have heard stories of people who worked at restaurants or seen first hand of how much food waste can happen on a daily basis. From people leaving food on their plates to the restaurant itself throwing out food that was not able to be eaten that day.
Let’s get into some of the statistics that may surprise you. According to the USDA, approximately 1/5 of America’s food ends up as waste every year. That equates to an estimated 130 pounds of food per person and a total value of $31 billion lost. I knew that the amount of money we lose each year because of food lost was high, but that is much higher than I ever expected.
What’s worse is that the EPA estimates that 12.5 % of all solid waste is from food scraps. Of that percentage, only a very small part of it is actually recovered. The major problem with so much waste product ending up in landfills is that it generates dangerous methane gas. Not only is methane much more of a potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but landfills are one of the leading causes of it’s generation. Because of the uncontrolled nature of a landfill, methane gas is much more likely to form than if it were diverted into a controlled manner.
The Biggest Culprits
It’s tough to really point the finger at anyone about this issue since it seems like everybody is taking part in making this a huge issue, but the commercial and retail food industry are massive producers of food waste. This includes restaurants, conveniences/grocery stores and food suppliers. Some of the main ways that food can be lost prior to even getting to our homes and the major ways that make me upset include discarding of imperfect foods, transportation and strange unwritten rules. Well actually, these can be the same reason that we discard food at our homes.
No So Perfect
We are actually the biggest reasons that so much food goes to waste. So many people demand that our food looks picture perfect and will not accept any less. The reason so many in the food industry discard of foods, in particular fruits and vegetables, is for this very reason. The nicer it looks, the more consumers are inclined to buy. This practice needs to stop as it makes absolutely no sense. I have tasted so many foods that many not look the nicest, but tastes really great.
Why the Long Trip?
When food is transported for thousands of miles, there are bound to be some loses along the way. Not only does the transportation of food generate tons of greenhouse gases, but it also causes more food waste. It makes sense that the longer food is just sitting in a truck, the most waste is going to be generated.
Who ever said…?
Who ever said that all the extra food that a restaurant or nearly expire food a grocery store has to be tossed in the trash? This goes back to strange “rules” that many food businesses follow that say they must throw these items in the trash. I just don’t get this, why not provide these perfectly good food items to local food kitchens and homeless shelters to give perfectly good food to people that need it. Even if these organizations don’t want to take food, why not try to sell it at a discounted price? Regardless of where it goes, there is no reason it needs to end up in the trash.
What to do
There are so many ways we can help in reducing the amount of food waste that is generated.
Buying Locally
I have given so many reason to buy local produce and this is yet another one. Local farmers only need to transport their foods over short distances and getting it to the consumer in shorter periods of time. This means that far less food will be wasted. It is also typical that local farmers sell produce that is really ripe for a discounted price. Foods transported across the country can’t do this since the food wouldn’t make it on the long trip.
Plan Wisely
When we plan before going shopping for food, it allows us to more precisely determine how much food we need. This means that less food will be wasted since we weren’t able to use it. Even if you do buy locally, it can be easy to buy foods that we simply aren’t going to use.
Order Appropriately
Whenever we go into restaurants, we order way more food that we can eat and end up not eating most of it. Not only can you save money, but it will reduce the amount of waste restaurants are generating. Instead of ordering that appetizer that was not really necessary, order just a main dish that you can eat. Also, don’t feel obligated to buy a dessert even after you are already full.
Compost
Take up composting. As I mentioned above, in a controlled environment like a compost bin, far less greenhouse gases are emitted. It also gives you a great fertilizer that you can put in your own garden.
Nobody is perfect and we all waste food at times. By becoming more aware of the situation, we reduce as much food waste as possible. Also be sure to check out this great article by Tristram Stuart about The Scandal of Food Waste.
Eat More At Home To Save
Nobody wants to cook every night and it’s sometimes great to out to eat to get a nice meal with no cleanup required. The major problem with going out is that most restaurants don’t usually serve many healthy dishes that also taste great. On top of that, restaurants can be really expensive, even when considering fast food. Why not choose to make food at home where you know exactly what ingredients are going into the meal while saving extra money.
Whole Foods recently conducted a survey that concluded that 51 percent of adults are choosing to eat at home due to the hard economic times. An even higher percent of the respondents, 68 percent, said they have least changed their cooking and eating behavior. There is not a whole lot to shed light on times like we are in, but at least people are becoming more grounded again and realizing that we can get more quality meals at home for a fraction of the cost of getting them at restaurants.
Regardless of the current economic situation you are in, changing your eating habits ot eat more at home can make a huge difference in your life. Eating at home on a nightly basis can seem daunting to many, but you’d be surprised just how easy it can be to eat a healthy meal, while saving a little extra cash.
How To Fit In Home Cooked Meals
I’ts not always easy to fit making a meal and cleaning up into our hectic schedules. Here are some ways to make it easier to fit eating at home in our schedules.
Reduce Work Schedule
Too many people have stressful lifestyles that often lead us to eat out as often as we do. It’s become too acceptable as a society that we work much more than our 40 hour work week. This only leads us to be more stressed out and not want to make a good meal at home. Not only do you suffer, but the rest of your family suffers as well. By working less or reducing some of the major stresses, making a meal at home will become so much easier. If you can’t work less, try working some later day and some shorter so that you will have the time to make a meal at home.
Meal Planning
Planning you meals for the entire week can really make it easy to fit eating at home in our lives. People often get discouraged when they get home from work and realize that they have no idea what they want to make nor have the ingredients to make it. A great idea is plan out the meals before going grocery shopping and shop for the entire week. Surf the net and seek out healthy, yet easy recipes that you can make for the week. I find that going to my local farmer’s market and stocking up on produce for the entire week is the easiest way for me. The quality of the foods you will buy will be superior what you could find in most grocery stores and almost always stay fresh throughout the week.
Improve Your Life
Now that you’ve found more time to eat a home more regularly, it’s time to look at some ways that it can help improve your life.
Healthier Ingredients
So many times when we go out to restaurants, the only fruit or vegetable we usually get is either a potato or is fried. Also, just because we eat at home doesn’t mean that we eat healthy or spend less than restaurants. This gives also us the opportunity to eat less meat and use healthy ingredients for you meals. It’s especially easy since many of the foods at our local farmer’s markets are healthy and fresh. Buying healthy foods doesn’t usually cost more money even if it does cost a little bit more, isn’t your health worth it?
Improve Family Life
Whenever I hear the song ‘Cat’s in the Cradle’ it always reminds me of just how dysfunctional our family life has become. So many families don’t sit down to eat a meal together and parents have no idea what their kids are eating. Involving the entire family in cooking the meals and getting them to sit down to dinner every night may help strengthen the relationship we have with our families. You can also ensure that everybody in your family is eating a healthy meal.
Save Money
This may be the most important reason for many people, as the survey above suggests. It’s so easy to save money by cooking at home, especially since the average cost of a meal at a restaurant is around $25 per person. Even if that figure is closer to $5 as you would get at a fast food restaurant, you can still possibly save some money. There are so many ways you can save money by eating at home since you exactly what you put into the meal. One great way that I found to really save is to eat less meat. Try making at least one meal a week without meat. Not only is it healthier for you, but you will find that it can much less expensive to make. Also, you can save much more money on usually expensive dishes like fish, while also knowing exactly where the fish is coming from. Get creative and you will find it easy to spend far less when eating at home.
World’s Healthiest Foods
One of my favorite resources for finding out which foods are the healthiest for me is from WHFoods.com. The site has a list of the 129 foods in 11 categories, ranging from vegetables to natural sweeteners, that can help us live a longer, healthier lifestyle.
What I really love about this site is when you click on a particular food item. Each food has a thorough description of why it deserves to be in the list of healthiest foods. There is a list of all the nutrients contained within the food and health benefit that the food will provide you.
This list is a great resource, but don’t think that you have to eat every single one of these items. Comprise your diet of many of the items from each category that you enjoy to eat. Also, choose the local foods so that you are not only supporting your community, but still eating healthy. I found that my local farmer’s market has many of the foods on this list making it easy for me to eat the healthiest foods on a regular basis.
Hopefully this site can be as useful as it has been to me to help live a happier and more healthier lifestyle.
Which Wine Cork to Choose?
There is a heated debate in the wine industry and among consumers as to which wine cork does the best job in preserving our wine. Synthetic stoppers and twist tops are two options becoming more popular because many wineries feel that they are superior in preserving the quality of wine. Traditional wine corks on the other hand are much more environmentally friendly and are still the leading wine stopper. So which is the better stopper?
The Cork Industry
Cork is an extremely sustainable material because it is harvested by stripping the bark off of cork oak trees, leaving them unharmed. For centuries, dating back almost 4,000 years, cork has been used for many purposes and even started to be used in other forms like flooring. Up until the 1970’s there has been somewhat of a monopoly for cork as the only type of wine stopper. A complaint for years with cork wine stoppers is that a small portion (around 1%) of wines have been tainted, containing a substance called TCA. This leaves the wine with a horrible odor, though it can still be drinkable without harm. Cork is not the only reason for the the build up of TCA in wines, but has received the majority of criticism for it ruining so many wines. The biggest issue with cork is that it had such a monopoly that it allowed them to let their quality slip.
The Rise of Alternatives
When synthetic plastic stoppers started to come out, the cork industry was skeptical and felt they would not last like cork has. Well, it turns out that they were wrong since synthetic and twist cap wine stoppers have come on strong and are heavily being used in today’s market. Not only can they more cost effective, but also have lower occurrences of TCA in wines. Both alternatives are not perfect and have faults of their own. Synthetic stoppers tend to let the wine be exposed too much to oxygen and thus not age as well. Screwcaps do a better job at protecting from oxygen, but allow for reduction to occur in the wine leading to an unpleasant odor. Screwcaps have grown heavily though because they are much more consistent and allow for every bottle to age similarly. They are coming close to taking over synthetic stoppers as the largest used alternative stopper. There are environmental concerns with using alternatives to cork though because it is such a sustainable materials. Screwcaps are made from aluminum and synthetic stoppers are made from plastic, neither material sustainable though can be recycled.
The Future
With a smaller market share, many of the major cork manufacturers are now producing much higher quality cork wine stoppers that have far lower occurrence of wine taint. Millions have been invested to ensure that the quality is much greater than it was in the past. The problem is that now people are wary of using cork stoppers because of worries about taint. The good news is that the majority of wineries still use cork as wine stoppers. The cork industry is largely dependent on stoppers and would take a huge hit if everybody switched over to using alternatives.
The issue I have with the cork industry is that they began worrying too much about profits and less about quality that they really hurt themselves. Let’s hope they learned their lesson and not only make cork a sustainable option to choose from, but one that produces the highest quality wines. At the moment, there is no true winner in the wine stopper business as there is no perfect stopper. In terms of the environment, cork is clearly the leader in the wine stopper market.
Check out this great interview with George Taber, author of the book To Cork or Not To Cork for more details on this debated topic.
Was There Ever Any Good Stuff in Snapple?
Snapple has always proclaimed to have “The Best Stuff on Earth” in all of their drinks. Just recently, they have a new campaign called “Better Stuff” in which Snapple believes they have found better stuff than the already best stuff that they use in their products. Let’s take a look at one of their commercials:
Wow, I always knew Snapple had great ingredients, but I didn’t think they could ever find better stuff.
I find this entire campaign ridiculous. They make it known through all their commercials that all the ingredients they use in their products could never be improved yet somehow they found a way to improve them. This just makes me think, what exactly were in their drinks that they were able to find “Better Stuff”.
So let’s answer the question I proposed in the title of this post, Was There Ever Any Good Stuff in Snapple?
I found a graphic that shows exactly what they used to include in something as simple as their Ice Tea:
Photo By: GraphJam
That’s pretty interesting that the most important ingredient is in such small quantity and so much filler. Who knows what they “Natural Flavors” they include and that’s an awful lot of high fructose corn syrup. Most of their other products are much worse containing just as high levels of high fructose corn syrup, but also artificial sweeteners, colors and caffeine. If you notice that most of their products that have a fruit in their name are not followed by juice, but rather the word “drink”. This means that instead of trying to use the “Best Stuff” they choose to fill their products with sugars and artificial flavorings to make it taste nothing like what the juice counterpart would.
So now that they have chosen to use “Better Stuff”, what exactly have they changed. As described in the video above, they now are using real sugar, natural green and black teas and more fruit in their drinks. It’s about time that Snapple decided to finally start using real ingredients in their products instead of the crap they were trying to sell before. Even now, many of their drinks contain lots of sugar and little fruits.
This campaign really makes me laugh since they are trying to make it seem like they were never selling crap to us at a high price. That’s great that they decide to improve their products, but don’t make the outrageous claim that your products are the “Best Stuff on Earth” in the first place, when they are anything but that. I have tried Snapple a few times in the past and I regret ever drinking them. This goes to show that it’s essential that you read labels and do the proper research before buying any food product so we don’t waste money on products making such absurd and false claims.
Homemade Bread Crumbs
Freshly made homemade breads crumbs are so easy to make and can add great flavor to many recipes.
Making breadcrumbs on your own also allows you to reuse those old loaves of bread that are just sitting there ready to be tossed.
Let’s get started.
- Pick you favorite type of bread to use as breadcrumbs. Who ever said plain white bread was the only type of breadcrumbs we are allowed to eat?
- Toast or Bake the bread if your bread is too soft or want a more dry breadcrumb. I bake the bread in my toaster oven for a few minutes.
- Tear or cut the bread into small chunks. This makes the process of making crumbs of it a little quicker.
- Throw the bread into a food processor or blender with whatever seasoning you would like. Italian seasoning is popular, but any type of seasoning will do.
- Let it run for 10-20 seconds, depending on how small you want the breadcrumbs to be.
That’s it. Now you have fresh breadcrumbs that will taste way better than any of the stuff you would ever buy in a grocery store while saving money.
Breadcrumbs is just another product that has unnecessary ingredients added to it by manufacturers to make it last forever. I was curious to see what was actually on the ingredients of a popular brand of breadcrumbs and was shocked to find that one of the top ingredients on the list was hydrogenated oil. I guess manufacturers will do anything to try to make their product taste better or last on the shelves longer. Just another reason to stick with making breadcrumbs on your own and reap the savings.
