The State of Our Food
Maggie B. Klein
Oliveto Restaurant, co-owner
(Written in 2002 for a general readership.)
One underlying premise of Oliveto is that a serious kitchen, in whatever regional tradition, must seek out and have access to excellent local ingredients. This is where real cooking begins and ends. If a chef is willing to go to the enormous trouble of cooking well, then making the effort to search out seasonal, local produce from farmers and purveyors we know and trust will offer great rewards. And once connections are made with farmers or their outlets, the connections themselves will enrich our cooking, ground it in the place where we live, and broaden our acquaintance with what’s available locally as the seasons turn.
We live in a time that is bearing full witness to the transformation of agricultural practices that happened just after WWII. More recently, scientists have unleashed new technological capabilities that will likely further alter agriculture as we remember it, perhaps irrevocably.
War technology facilitated mass production of chemical pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, and fertilizers. Large-scale machinery increased productivity for those who had the capital for it. The loosening of anti-trust laws, which began in the Reagan administration, allowed mergers of big agricultural companies who could then collude to drive out smaller competitors. Giant vertically-integrated corporations, by owning their own livestock, feedlots, slaughterhouses, and processing plants, could control pricing by means of their own “captive supplies,” or driving prices up when it was to their direct advantage. This also led to the subjugation of individual farmers who could no longer compete and for whom the only recourse was to sign a fixed-price contract or fold. Government subsidies aided growers of a few crops, like corn and wheat, providing incentive for farmers to turn to the same commodity crop year after year. All of those factors led to the practice of monoculture planting across broad expanses of farmland, and contributed to the disappearance of whole communities of farmers who grew multiple crops and livestock on a small scale.[1] The formerly diverse rural landscape became monotonous plantations, and the farmer was transformed from custodian of the land to its entrepreneur.
By 1993, 6 percent of U.S. farms accounted for 56 percent of farm sales. In 2003, large-scale family farms and nonfamily farms accounted for 73 percent of production in the U.S. [USDA]. For the first time ever, most work on farms is done not by resident farmer-owners and a local labor force, but by non-resident managers and migrant labor. Farm ownership has become an investment, labor a commodity. These changes, along with the gradual refocusing of Land Grant College and Experiment Station research to large-scale, industrialized farming[2], are responsible for the present state of our food supply. Such transformations have been geared to the singular purpose of providing abundant quantities of food (with abundant collateral profits) at a low cost. Yet, as William Greider in The Nation wrote in November 2000, “In a variety of ways, cheap food assigns its true costs to many unwitting victims.”
As a society, we pay with the destruction of wildlife and its habitat. While super hybrids are developed to perform on demand, gene pools are diminished. As our soils lose natural nutrients and our animals their vitality, so does our food become less and less palatable and less safe to eat. Human labor is degraded. Our taxes buy much of agribusiness’ water use, environmental cleanup, research on agro-chemicals and bio-engineered crops, and ill-placed subsidies. The loss of a prosperous and populated rural culture has its ramifications in cities as well as in small towns, with rural communities losing their economic and population base and inner cities absorbing the jobless. Seasonal farm workers who are homeless, poor, under-represented, and insufficiently protected from the toxic effects of chemicals take on the work. A diminishing percentage of prices paid at the supermarket goes to those who farm the land, while corporate profits rise. Astonishingly, the amount of crops lost to insect pests on conventional farms today is the same 33 percent it was in 1942, just before the introduction of chemical pesticides and fertilizers on a large scale—this in spite of the current application of 1 billion pounds of pesticide per year. Resources that belong to us all—–soil, water, fuel, and air—have been co-opted.
Meanwhile huge, vertically integrated corporations gobble up smaller food producers and feed us a steady diet of advertising as insidious as it is ambiguous. The underlying values that formerly distinguished a certified “organic” food, for instance, have now been trumped by facile marketing schemes aimed at health-conscious consumers who (the savvy marketing departments understand) need only “perceive” that a food conform to their lifestyle. Take, for example, a catch phrase for ConAgra’s Healthy Choice brand: “Being healthy means feeling good about your food choices.” In an alluring twist of logic, advertising leaves us betrayed by our own desires. A can of Healthy Choice Fiesta Chicken Soup, with a bright seal-like emblem affixed to the label stating, “Good Source of PROTEIN,” has about the same list of ingredients as a similar product from Campbell’s, with starch, “flavor,” dehydrated chicken meat, turkey fat, disodium inosinate and guanylate, 20 percent of the “daily value” for sodium, and much of the protein (for a total of 6 grams per serving–hardly a “Good Source”) coming, one can assume, from “isolated soy protein.” Supposedly, we are to be heartened by such a vague and vacuous claim as that for Knott’s Berry Farm’s jams and preserves (also a ConAgra brand), which are “made with sun-ripened fruit grown and harvested from the best places on Earth.” It is not surprising that the corporate advertisers should presume so boldly the gullibility of consumers. Nourished on inexpensive, corn-derived-glucose sweetened, pre-assembled, packaged food in a fairyland of choice, lassitude or indifference easily sets in. If a consumer were thinking clearly and were to heed the admonition of Nabisco about the Fig Newton–“Experience the power of the fig”–would he not go pick, or buy dried, then eat, a fig? Agribusiness marketers have no use for language as a means of honest communication.
By 2004, Americans were spending 9.5 percent of their income on food [Illinois Farm Bureau]. Most cheap food in the U.S. continues to be produced by consolidated agribusiness, available in consolidated supermarkets everywhere. Such food is the product of concentrated power without accountability. The frugal, uninformed, poor, or non-discerning consumer chooses from agribusiness-produced fruits and vegetables that were grown not for flavor, vitality, or nutrient value, nor for cooking characteristics, but for durability in shipping, length of shelf-life, ease of harvest, uniformity of shape and size, pest-, herbicide-, or disease-resistance in a monoculture system, and processing characteristics.
The Corporate Market Basket–At present, a handful of corporations control food production in America. Cargill, Archer-Daniels-Midland, and ConAgra dominate grain and processing. Beef feedlots and packing houses belong to IBP, ConAgra, Cargill, and Cactus Feeders; hog growers and processors are Smithfield, IBP, ConAgra, Cargill, and Seaboard. Biotechnology and seeds are the purview of Monsanto, DuPont/Pioneer, Novartis, and Aventis. Kroger, Albertsons, Safeway, AHOLD (Giant), Winn-Dixie, and Wal-Mart control supermarkets. Like many other giant corporations, Cargill and Monsanto have joint ventures as well, theirs being in fertilizer, seeds, grain, cattle, hogs, turkeys, chickens, and slaughterhouses. Although they refer to these practices as characteristic of a free “market economy,” ours hardly qualifies as one. Many independent farmers are compelled to resort to growing crops and livestock under fixed-price contracts with the corporations or else go out of business. They buy supplies, equipment, and seeds from the top-to-bottom companies, and produce to corporate specifications. At the beginning of the ‘90s, six varieties of corn comprised 46 percent of U.S. corn production; nine varieties of wheat comprised half the U.S. wheat production; two varieties of peas made up 96 percent of U.S. production; and half the world’s potato acreage was planted to the McDonald’s French-fry potato, the ‘Russet Burbank’.
Corporate Influence, Marketing, and Misinformation–The wealth of large corporations enables them to influence legislation, buy expensive, prime-time advertising, and disseminate information that is skewed in their favor. The Food Marketing Institute is a wealthy trade association representing three quarters of American grocery sales; the American Dietetic Association, whose objective is “to inspire the health of the public,” publishes “fact sheets” about biotechnology and olestra, paid for by Monsanto and Procter & Gamble, among others. Science writers with political agendas or corporate backing use inflammatory rhetoric and misrepresent or mis-attribute statements.
One such writer is Dennis T. Avery, author of Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastic, whose syndicated column is sometimes cited by well-respected media. He wrote that, “People who eat organic or ‘natural’ foods are eight times as likely as the rest of the population to be attacked by a deadly new strain of E. coli bacteria (0157:H7,” maintaining that this is so because organic crops are grown with untreated animal manure. He sourced scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a follow-up investigation by P.R.Watch, those scientists denied ever having made the statements. Quite the contrary. When the U.S. Department of Agriculture was considering standards for organic certification, it was the independent organic farmers who were adamant that federal rules specifically prohibit the use of raw manure or sewage on food crops. The standards that were adopted mandate that manure used by Certified Organic farmers must be composted, or be applied to soil long enough in advance for bacteria no longer to be active. It is conventional agriculture that does not regulate the use of raw manure on food crops. Despite Avery’s claims being debunked in the New York Times, they are nevertheless yet quoted. One such article by Avery, “Organic Food? No Thanks,” was even picked up by the Wall Street Journal.
The Environment and Inhumane Practices–Whereas a credible case can be made for the safety of produce that does not exceed the limits of chemical residues legally allowed on food crops, farming that systematically uses chemicals to control plant diseases, insect pests, and weeds, and relies heavily on petrochemical fertilizers, causes harm to various ecosystems and populations. Energy to produce and transport pesticides and petrochemical fertilizers; fuel to operate combines, harvesters, and enormous farm equipment; fuel to refrigerate and transport perishables across the country or around the world—all contribute to global warming and the resulting violence in weather conditions and rising ocean levels. And fuel use depletes a non-renewable resource. Herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers make their way into aquifers, rivers, wetlands, streams, and oceans, affecting drinking water, riparian habitats, and marine environments. Naturally occurring nutrients, minerals, and organic material are leached from the soil. Heavy metals accumulate and retard plant growth. Salts are deposited. Biological soil activity decreases or is annulled as the soil becomes little more than a sponge to sop the additives.
Animal husbandry has fared no better in its industrialized setting. Animals raised to market weight in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are unable to move and stretch or breathe fresh air. They often become sick and crazed. Because the only life they know is reduced to the borders of a caged metal and concrete pen, they are prone to stress in the discomfiting trip from prison to slaughterhouse. Antibiotics used to increase growth rate and to combat the illnesses the CAFO living conditions foster create antibiotic-resistant bacteria that accumulate in the soil and groundwater beneath the confined housing[3]. Accumulations of urine and feces from confinement factories, for which there is no composting system or adequate disposal methods, escape from their holding “ponds” into water systems. The 2 million tons of animal waste produced daily in confinement housing give rise to methane (a greenhouse gas), hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia. The price of such pollution is borne not by the poultry, hog, and cattle industries, but by nearby communities of taxpayers and downstream businesses such as fisheries.
Unsafe meat and irradiation–Corporate slaughtering plants commonly process an astonishing number of animals–3,000 to 4,000 animals a day–in conditions that are inhumane and unsanitary, with a labor force that suffers a high injury rate. Inspection under such conditions is inadequate, human error inevitable. Animal waste carrying pathogenic bacteria contaminates meat, which has led to an unprecedented rate of food-borne illness. One proposed panacea is irradiation, an expensive process using high doses of radiation and causing destruction of nutrients, vitamins, and essential fatty acids.[4] Irradiation can lead to the formation of formaldehyde, octane, butane, benzene, and methyl propane in certain foods, as well as compounds called “radiolytic products,” which don’t naturally occur in food and which the FDA has not to date studied for safety. By killing food pathogens, irradiation encourages the filthy conditions at slaughterhouses and processing plants that produce them, while altering the appearance, texture, and nutrient content of meat. (Irradiation also lengthens shelf-life of various products, destroying the fundamental value of waiting for ripeness in fruits, and the need for foods to be handled conscientiously from field to table.)
Genetically Engineered Crops
That the American public is ill-informed about Genetically Engineered (GE) foods is not simply a question of genetic engineering’s pros and cons not having been sufficiently explored in media and advertising. “A review of existing scientific literature reveals that key experiments on both the environmental risks and benefits [of genetic engineering] are lacking. The complexity of ecological systems presents considerable challenges for experiments to assess the risks,” states a recent article in Science magazine. Nevertheless, BSMG Worldwide (the public relations firm that represents Monsanto, Chemical Manufacturers Association, Procter & Gamble, and Philip Morris), The Grocery Manufacturers of America (a well-funded lobbying organization which runs a major campaign for GE food), and various corporate-funded associations, think tanks, and partisan columnists, have set forth a number of “myths” about GE foods that have been widely accepted. Among them are that the increased productivity of GE crops offers the only solution to mass starvation in third-world countries; that GE crops will help lower the use of agricultural chemicals; that GE crops are safe and have been adequately tested; and that GE technology is basically no different from that used in traditional plant and animal hybridization and breeding.
When it comes to planting and ingesting GE crops, a good case can be made to proceed with suspicion if not extreme caution. A key aspect of the GE problem is that giant corporations are patenting life forms and seeds, leaving the decision about the usefulness and very existence of a plant or animal in the hands of narrowly interested groups. That, and “terminator-technology” (technology that renders seeds sterile in order to prevent farmers from saving seeds and re-planting them from season to season), make farmers dependent on the GE seed company. Regarding starvation in third world countries, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has concluded that the outlook for long-term food security in developing nations is good without GE crops, the problems that do exist being the result of poverty and poor food distribution. Small farms in developing countries would stand to benefit from increasing the productivity of the whole system, not just a single crop, and to improve current practices and acquire traditional technologies appropriate to each individual farm rather than becoming reliant on a corporation for seed, pesticides, fertilizers, and equipment.
As for reduced use of chemicals, most GE crops either enable the increased use of herbicides by making the crop herbicide resistant, or cause the GE plant to manufacture its own naturally occurring pesticide, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which organic farmers are careful to use infrequently and in small quantities. Genetically engineered Bt cotton and corn save 9 percent of pesticide use; a good integrated pest management program saves 30 to 50 percent. And Bt-engineered corn plants exude so much Bt that it remains in the soil for 200 days, greatly increasing the likelihood of creating Bt-tolerance in pests. On a Union of Concerned Scientists list of thirty-nine GE food crops allowed in the U.S., seventeen had engineered traits to resist herbicides; fourteen contained Bt toxin; and four were altered for ripening to enhance fresh market value. Only one crop had been modified, it would seem, to improve the product for the consumer: a soybean’s oil was altered to increase stability and reduce polyunsaturated fatty acids. None had been developed for better flavor or nutrition.
As for the safety of GE crops, the possible effects of any GE crop are too broad to be tested adequately or anticipated. No insurance company has been willing to insure this kind of technology. American farmers who buy GE seeds from Monsanto will soon have to sign a “Technology Agreement” that states that, “In no event shall Monsanto or any seller be liable for any incidental, consequential, special, or punitive damages.” (Strongly indicated, however, is a potential for horizontal gene transfer, something the GE companies have said was impossible. In the summer of 2000, German researchers documented that genetic material could cross the species barrier when they positively identified pollen from GE rape in bacteria from the intestines of honeybees.)
Proponents of GE technology use the “principle of familiarity,” which states that if one knows the actions of the naturally occurring organisms that contribute genetic material to the GE organism, then one can predict the actions of the GE organism. The “precautionary principle” widely accepted in international law and the basis for the exclusion by much of the world[5] of U.S.-developed GE products, has been discarded by our regulatory and certifying agencies in favor of the designation “generally regarded as safe” (GRAS), which allows our government to rely solely on corporate testing to ascertain safety to consumers and to the environment.
The Organic Designation
Given the scope of corporate agriculture, all this would seem hopeless were it not for the dedication of more and more small farmers who have seen the possibilities of growing crops organically, whether by the letter of the certification rules or simply by staying within the original spirit of organic farming and using a holistic approach to diversified husbandry. Mindful of the health and life of the soil, and of the farm as a living organism with interconnected parts, the organic or self-sustaining farmer uses site-specific practices based on sound principles.
Crop rotation, or growing different crops in succession in the same plot, is a powerful technique in pest control and replenishing soil nutrients. Recycling by incorporating animal wastes, living and dead plants, and compost is a tenet of the organic farmer. Cover crops such as clover, oats, and vetch are planted by sustainable farmers to prevent erosion, suppress weeds, and enhance soil quality. Spiders, owls, ladybugs, raptors, and snakes are some of the creatures that are encouraged as natural pest predators on a well-run farm. Root pathogens are controlled at a microbial level as beneficial organisms are introduced and encouraged.
Organic farmers live on the land and work it themselves. They know which plants grow best in their soil and microclimate. They witness naturally occurring hybridization in their plots of tomatoes; they introduce families and restaurants to figs plucked as drops of sugary syrup ooze from them. They are the savers of seeds of old fruit and vegetable varieties, the advocates for different breeds of chickens and pigs. They will listen to suggestions for new crops from their customers, plant them in the places where they are most likely to thrive, and learn from trial and error. They sell not to faceless customers who buy for convenience’ sake, but to people with whom they have a dialogue, season after season. Their beneficiaries are not just their customers and those who dine at their table, but the small piece of earth that they steward, the groundwater beneath them and waters downstream, and the air.
Meats raised with an organic designation offer their own problem for the grower, one that is not seen on organic farms that raise only fruits and vegetables for human consumption. A meat cow is weaned at 500 to 600 pounds, then moved to a feed lot where an average of 3000 to 3500 pounds of grain (six to seven times its pre-feedlot weight) are necessary to produce a market weight animal. Even for some smaller producers who raise their animals to 75 percent of their final market weight (1200 pounds) grain free, it is prohibitively costly to use organic feed for finishing. Sometimes the best a consumer can do is to find a grower who practices humane husbandry, who does not, as a matter of course, use antibiotics, and whose practices are sustainable.
Assessing the nutritional quality of food raised by sustainable farming in comparison to conventional farming is problematic. There are many variables that affect the nutrition of food, including soil type, climate, crop and variety, crop management practices, maturity, and post-harvest handling. In addition, soil testing, mineral supplementation, and biological soil management are practices that vary from farm to farm. Because it is at best difficult to conclusively correlate results with particular causative factors, or to make meaningful comparisons between studies, the data are inconclusive. Nevertheless, according to Dr. Joan Gussow, Professor Emeritus of Nutrition and Education at Columbia Teachers College, who conducted an extensive review of this topic, “Lacking such careful studies, there is enough cumulative evidence to indicate—to those who wish to be convinced—that organic foods have a variety of qualities that should, over the long term, make them more healthful—including lower levels of pesticide residues, lower levels of nitrate-nitrogen, greater density, better flavor if they are properly handled.” (In her cumulative analysis of data from 1230 published comparisons, Virginia Worthington[6] notes a statistically higher nutrient content in organic vs. conventional food.)
Gussow goes on to say, “But the available studies are conflicting enough to convince anyone who isn’t a fan of organic, that any differences that can be demonstrated are not worth writing home about, and certainly not a reason to promote organic food.” Rather, a number of those who have reviewed the subject in depth[7] have come to the similar conclusion that the organic industry should concentrate on the benefits more easily promoted—natural resource conservation; that organic culture solves rather than creates environmental problems; and reducing air, water, soil, and food contamination.
But those qualities that are discernible by taste, smell, feel, and appearance are not subjective, and suggest a wholesomeness not apparent in supermarket items. A freshly dug potato, smelling of the earth and feeling like the living organism that it is, is a far-distant cousin of the long-stored, washed and scrubbed ‘White Rose’ from Safeway, and no relation at all to the boxed instant potatoes from the supermarket’s packaged-food aisle. A heavy, just-picked ‘Gravenstein’ apple from a nearby farm, “imperfect” in its partially russeted, streaked redness, has an ephemeral character absent from any industrially produced fruit. Shoppers will never see apricots picked at the peak of their ripeness in a supermarket.
Although they still make up only 2 percent of production in California, Certified Organic Farms are increasing in number at the rate of over 1000 per year—to 7800 in May 2001. One Certified Organic farm couple we know, however, pays 2 percent of their gross income in the certification process, and is considering discontinuing organic certification, even though their methods are, if anything, beyond organic.
To make their hard work even more difficult, family farmers, whether certified organic or not, will be competing more and more with the nation’s large growers who have made inroads into the organic market. It has been predicted that within the next decade the organic industry will be dominated by fewer than ten grower/shippers. Small farmers will have to reinvent themselves, probably by forming collectives that emphasize regionality. But as the public becomes better informed about the meaning of words like bio-intensive, sustainable, biodynamic, and the like, and small, independent certification processes begin to emerge, one hopes there will be more clarity regarding the designation “organic.”
Fish
Oceanic ecosystems are under attack from various sources. Each year, the equivalent of 20 Exxon Valdez spills enters America’s coastal waters from spills, leaks, and intentional dumping. Global warming continues to shift the competitive balance among species. Runoff, from factory farms and conventional agriculture as well as from urban areas, creates massive algae blooms and oxygenless dead zones. Overcapitalized freezer trawlers, drag trawling, huge incidental catches, all have helped deplete ocean resources. (Half the world’s catch of shrimp and fin fish comes from drag trawlers; 30 million tons of fish, sharks, and seabirds per year are thrown away; and each year trawl nets scrape bottom-dwelling communities two times the size of the U.S. and as far beneath the ocean’s surface as 2 kilometers.) Over a fourth of wild fisheries’ product is used for livestock feed. King crab in Alaska; redfish, shark, and grouper in the Gulf of Mexico; rockfish in California; codfish in New England; anadromous Atlantic salmon—all are severely depleted, some nearly to the point of extinction.
With the exception of mollusks, which are farmed sustainably in tidal areas on naturally occurring food[8], farmed fish have their own problems. Fish held in closed systems, fed on grains, with little exercise, are inferior in flavor and texture to wild fish, and are prone to disease. Raised in enclosures in coastal waters, salmon, being carnivorous, consume three to five times their body weight in wild-caught fish. Escapes from cage and net systems upset the gene pools and natural behaviors of indigenous salmon in areas where foreign species, or gene-altered fish, are confined.
At the time of this writing (2002), Alaskan halibut, East Coast striped bass, white sea bass, Dungeness crab, squid, sand dabs, Pacific albacore, and mahi mahi are well-managed fisheries. There are yet hook-and-line-caught swordfish and Scottish-seined sand dabs. A few fishermen still use non-barbed hooks.
On a local level, it is best to find a reliable fishmonger who buys only from sustainable fisheries.
Notes on Purchasing Food
The best place to search for food is at your local farmers’ market. The farmers’ market is your connection to the soil and its fruits, as well as to those people with whom a relationship adds to the enjoyment of cooking. It is at the farmers’ market that you will find out what you will be cooking for your next meal, and it is from the farmers’ market that you will take your inspiration. This is where food smells like itself, where products don’t just reflect the season, they are a part of it.
The internet is a good place to begin one’s search for farmers’ markets if you don’t already know where they are held. Once a promising website is found, it will suggest other sources and links to other websites. Should your area not have farmers’ markets available to you year round, seek out subscription farms, cooperatives formed by organic and family farmers, and local dairies on the web. They can direct you to their outlets.
For those who do not have access to outlets that sell organically raised meats, labels can be useful. “All natural” meats are “minimally processed and contain no artificial ingredients,” such as MSG and sodium phosphate, but the USDA does not exclude growth hormones or antibiotics used as growth promoters under the rubric “all natural.” “Grass fed” and “pasture raised” have no standard meaning yet. Niman Ranch and Meyer Natural Beef observe Animal Welfare Institute guidelines for humane treatment of animals. The term “free range” means that the bird had access to the outside, but does not define how much room was provided each animal; “free roaming” might only mean that the bird was not raised in a cage. The USDA allows “No antibiotics” on labels if a producer has provided documentation that no antibiotics have been used for any reason other than disease treatment.
Ingredients on packages and bottles are listed in descending order of weight, so check to see if the “cherry juice” you are buying might not have more grape and apple juice in it than cherry. Avoid ultra-pasteurized milk products; ultra-pasteurization prolongs shelf-life at the expense of flavor and nutrition. Try to buy locally produced milk and cream, and make sure the product is either organic or the label says the herd has not been treated with rBGH[9].
The organic regulations of the World Trade Organization do not meet the same standards as those of the U.S. Imported food crops can have higher chemical residues, or they may contain substances banned altogether in the U.S. Consider too the implications of produce shipped long distances. The journey of plums from the southern to the northern hemisphere in February may seem like another blessing for our entitled population, but it further supports the disconnect from the seasonal rhythms of our planet and promotes global corporations while contributing to climate change.
Cooking with foods grown by farmers you have met, in nearby places that you have driven past, will give you a sense that your world is one of interconnected parts. You will observe the vitality of the produce in the way it tastes, smells, and feels, and by how long it remains wholesome and appealing compared with produce you buy at the supermarket. Your choices will become broader than the few varieties and species chosen for you by industrial growers. You will know that your money goes directly to the people who grew your food, not to packagers, ad-writers, shipping moguls, or CEOs. Cooking with food that is vital and seasonal will provide great pleasure, akin, somehow, to having grown it yourself. You will have the added knowledge that you have encouraged the restoration of a safe and wholesome food system.
[1] At the beginning of the twentieth century, 17 percent of U.S. farms produced 50 percent of farm sales; in 1997, 2 percent of farms produced 50 percent of agricultural sales.
[2] Of 886,000 research acres in the land-grant system, only .02 percent is devoted to organic farming. The rest are for research that, in the main, benefits corporations and large monoculture farms.
[3] Against the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the use of fluoroquinolones in chickens was made legal. Its use has created drug-resistant Campylobacter. Flouroquinolones are considered a drug of last resort in fighting infections in humans.
[4] Vitamin losses due to irradiation are as follows: A–2 to 95%; B–15 to 96%; C–20 to 70%; E–5 to 90%; niacin–2 to 88%.
[5] Monsanto’s rBGH, bovine growth hormone, the first gene-altered hormone to be approved for sale in the U.S., was denied approval in Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and Greece.
[6] See www.biodynamics.com/biodynamicsarticles/worth.html.
[7] Gussow, Institute of food Technologists, Greg and Pat Williams, editors of HortIdeas.see “Nutritiona Quality of Organically Grown Food for others.
[8] Mollusks are filter feeders, i.e., they filter microalgae in the form of plankton blooms from the water in which they live.
[9] Whereas the use of rBGH has not been shown thus far to cause ill effects in humans, its use in dairy herds is unnecessary for an industry with historically large surpluses, and causes stress and injury in dairy cows.
