Organic Bytes

http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob363.htm

Follow OCA: Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest | YouTube   View PDF | Subscribe & Read Past Issues | OCA Homepage | Donate  ESSAY OF THE WEEK Climate-Friendly Food and Farming: Why We Need Labels on Factory-Farmed Food When we think of global warming, we usually think of gas-guzzling cars and industrial smokestacks. Not food and farms. It’s time to change how we think. The fact is our modern industrial food and farming systems, with all their chemical use, genetically modified crops and energy-intensive methods, are the major cause of man-made global warming. How can you help change the system? By buying local and organic, and by boycotting all meat, dairy and eggs from factory farms which, as it turns out, are a major contributor to our current climate crisis. How can we get everyone to help? By educating consumers about the health, ethical and environmental hazards associated with factory farming. And by demanding labels on all meat, eggs and dairy from animals raised on these farms, so consumers can make a clear choice at the grocery store. It's time to vote with our forks and knives for climate-friendly food and farming! Ronnie’s latest essay   FDA: ‘Nuking Fruits & Veggies Will Make Them Safer.’ Huh? TAKE ACTION: Tell the FDA: Don’t irradiate my veggies! Under pretense of keeping us “safe,” the FDA now suggests we’d all be better off eating irradiated raw vegetables and fruits. Huh? In a new rule proposed under the misguided 2010 Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the FDA says it wants to require producers of food to be sold in the U.S. to develop a “formal plan” for preventing their products from causing foodborne illness. Processed foods and raw meat are exempted from the rule, but purveyors of raw fruits and vegetables will be required to comply – unless they irradiate their products. Given the difficulties of navigating the new FDA regs for a “formal plan,” what are the chances food producers will choose the easy way out, and simply irradiate their products rather than deal with the FDA’s mountains of bureaucratic paperwork? Never mind that nuking food destroys vitamins, essential fatty acids and other nutrients. Or that it produces carcinogens, such as benzene and formaldehyde, as well as radiolytic compounds that humans have never eaten before. Never mind that there are no federal standards for safe levels of radiation in sterilized food. Never mind that the FDA has never offered any concrete proof that irradiation is safe. On the contrary, there is a large body of evidence that says irradiated foods are dangerous. We know that animals fed irradiated food have developed tumors and suffered reproductive damage and kidney failure. And how is it that the FDA requires labels on irradiated foods, which it claims are perfectly safe, but rejects the notion of labeling genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which it also claims are safe? Where’s the consistency? TAKE ACTION: Tell the FDA: Don’t irradiate my veggies! Learn more