Food prices are directly linked to oil and so to our long distance model.

What can be done?

Can we decouple our food system from oil and imports?

I think that we can and have to. What else can we do - hope???

Amplify’d from www.cbc.ca

P.E.I. consumers are less than thrilled that oil and food — especially staples such as bread, pasta, rice and coffee — are about to become more expensive.

Grocery giant Loblaws has announced it will raise prices on many items by an average of five per cent starting next month.

Skyrocketing food prices have been among the triggers for protests in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere and raised fears of a repeat of the food price crises in 2007 and 2008.

In Charlottetown, Buns n' Things bakery is already hiking its prices by five per cent, saying the cost of the flour and shortening it uses has gone up 20 per cent since last fall. The bakery has been absorbing the cost until now.

Other retailers such as Sobeys have suggested they'll have no choice but to raise food prices as well. Read more at www.cbc.ca

Here it goes again - the focus is on the minimal risks of artisan food and the larger picture of millions of people's health is ignored.

One day it will be common knowledge that most of the foods that we eat daily have been making us ill. Not acutely but systemically. Today those that make this food, like the tobacco industry, know the truth - that what they make and sell is truly dangerous.

Confinement, intensity, the focus on corn and on shelf life all bring not risks but real damage. Damage to most people, not to the 60 people in this case.

But the Food System CANNOT be questioned. So it pushes back at the very place where progress and reform is alive. Where food is not made in an industrial context. They attack small growers and processors.

Wake up and see how regulatory capture attacks us!

Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com

Federal regulators are considering whether to tighten food safety rules for cheese made with unpasteurized milk — and the possibility has cheesemakers and foodies worried that the result will be cheese that is less tasty and not much safer.

The debate focuses on a federal rule that requires cheese made from raw milk to be aged for 60 days before it is deemed safe to eat. Raw milk has not been heated to kill harmful bacteria, a process known as pasteurization. So aging allows the chemicals in cheese, acids and salt, time to destroy harmful bacteria.

Today, with the artisan cheese industry booming, the focus is on homegrown cheesemakers. Read more at www.nytimes.com

In many cultures Insects are a big part of the meal. In the West - they are a challenge. But I do love shrimp and lobster - close! So maybe a bug or 2 might make it onto my plate.

How about you?

Amplify’d from www.physorg.com

Van Tol a

"Tasty ... kind of nutty!" the 20-year-old assures her companions clutching an array of creepy crawly pastries at a seminar, which forecast that larvae and locusts will invade Western menus as the price of steak and chops skyrocket.

Van Tol and about 200 other tasters were guinea pigs for a group of Dutch scientists doing groundbreaking research into insects replacing animal meat as a healthier, more environmentally friendly source of protein.

"There will come a day when a Big Mac costs 120 euros ($163) and a Bug Mac 12 euros, when more people will eat insects than other meat," head researcher Arnold van Huis told a disbelieving audience at Wageningen University in the central Netherlands.

Three species: meal worms, buffalo worms and grasshoppers, are cultivated by three farmers in the Netherlands for a small but growing group of adventurous foodies.

"People think it is something dirty. It generates a Fear Factor response," citing the reality series that tests competitors' toughness by feeding them live insects.

Dicke said Westerners had no choice but to shed their bug bias, with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation predicting there will be nine billion people on the planet by 2050 and agricultural land already under pressure. Read more at www.physorg.com

Now that "Real Food" is making progress the inquisition is in full force.

Amplify’d from www.alternet.org

The free exchange of ideas is so essential to a healthy democracy, it was particularly disturbing to learn that Mark D. Keating was terminated as an Agricultural Marketing Specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Program (NOP) for expressing personal opinions in communications with the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB).

In an interview, Mr. Keating said the official reasons given for his termination were a "complete fabrication." He added, "I was the guy who knew too much."

Mr. Keating is convinced that it was the "political hierarchy" at the USDA rather than knowledgeable civil servants who were responsible for his termination. When asked whether powerful corporate interests had sought his dismissal, he said he had no evidence to support such a claim. He did say that giant agribusiness believes it has provided the "most abundant and cheapest food supply in the world" and the criticism leveled at it by sustainable farming advocates has led to "hurt feelings" in the industry.

Last September, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) published the results of a survey of USDA scientists and inspectors responsible for food safety. "Hundreds of scientists and inspectors responsible for food safety have personally experienced political interference in their work, and that's bad for public health," said Francesca Grifo, director of UCS's Scientific Integrity Program at the time. "Both the administration and Congress need to act." Read more at www.alternet.org

This is what we are up against!

Amplify’d from www.utne.com

Cows eat grass. You wouldn’t think it’s a big deal to state this, but at Iowa State University a highly qualified job applicant who had the temerity to voice this simple biological fact was ejected from consideration for a post leading a sustainable agriculture program, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports:

Well, it sure did. Ricardo Salvador is a well-respected sustainable agriculture expert and a former professor at Iowa State—and a natural, many observers thought, to lead the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture as its new director. A finalist for the position, however, he didn’t get the post even when the top candidate turned it down. Apparently, his cow comment came back to haunt him:

The remark that may have sunk Mr. Salvador’s candidacy came 37 minutes into his on-campus presentation. While discussing a research project in New York State, he mentioned meat being “produced in the natural way that meat should be produced, which is on land suitable for grasses and perennial crops.”

If this were a TV game show, a loud buzzer would have gone off and Mr. Salvador would have been escorted from the stage that very moment. Because apparently he was supposed to say that cows should eat corn. Even if that’s not natural or sustainable, it’s simply how things are done in Iowa, a state built on big agriculture:

Corn allows cows to get fatter faster and be ready for slaughter sooner. But there are downsides, including the fact that cows have trouble digesting corn and must be fed antibiotics to prevent them from becoming ill. What’s more, the beef from corn-fed cows tends to have more fat.

The danger of the truth is so great that the Chronicle couldn’t even get Wendy Wintersteen, the dean of Iowa State’s agriculture school, to go anywhere near it. When asked whether cows evolved to eat grass, she replied, “I don’t have an opinion on that statement.” Read more at www.utne.com

"Food Safety" is being used by Big Ag and their friends to cull the Food Revolution. Here Vermont takes a stand as should we all. On PEI the Mass Egg folks tried to use the same gambit. Of course the real food safety issue lies in the process of mass concentration and factory methods.

We have to be very careful not to be bamboozled here.

Amplify’d from healthfreedoms.org

In the face of the recent passing by the senate of the ‘food safety’ bill H.R.2751, previously S. 510, that will put the FDA in control of the nations food supply,Vermont citizens have made a declaration that the agency and government have no right to determine or restrict the food choices of the People of Vermont. “The Vermont Resolution for Food Sovereignty” was brought forth by the Vermont Coalition for Food Sovereignty, it makes a statement to the United States government and the FDA that all citizens who want to protect their freedom of food should stand behind.

The Vermont Resolution for Food Sovereignty WHEREAS All people are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and WHEREAS Food is human sustenance and is the fundamental prerequisite to life; and WHEREAS The basis of human sustenance rests on the ability of all people to save seed, grow, process, consume and exchange food and farm products; and WHEREAS We the People of Vermont, have an obligation to protect these rights as is the Common and Natural Law; and in recognition of the State’s proud agricultural heritage; and the necessity of agricultural, ecological and economic diversity and sustainability to a free and healthy Society; THEREFORE, Be it resolved, that We The People, stand on our rights under the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution and reject such Federal decrees, statutes, regulations or corporate practices that threaten our basic human right to save seed, grow, process, consume and exchange food and farm products within the State of Vermont; and, Be it further resolved, that We The People, shall resist any and all infringements upon these rights, from whatever sources that are contrary to the rights of the People of the State of Vermont.

This Resolution is a clear and timely reminder of our rights as humans on this Earth and citizens of a country that was to be based on the freedom to live full, prosperous lives. We live in a Democracy? When you do a simple search of the bill that this resolution stands against, the top links are to articles talking about what a devious and dangerous act it is, ‘a snake hissing in the grass’. The people spoke out heavily against S.510 so fervently that the passing was done in an underhanded, undemocratic way. Pushed through in a late night proceeding right before Christmas and hidden in a spending bill (http://healthfreedoms.org/2010/12/21/republicans-democrats-collude-to-pass-food-safety-bill/), it was forced to passing by those in office in order that they may gain more power.

On the Coalition’s site, http://vermontfoodsovereignty.net/, they call for preemptive action to protect the small farms of Vermont. The determined and protective mindset is nothing new to the state which has made other respectable decisions that have preserved the beauty of their land and health of its people. Vermont tops the 2010 results of Americas health ranking, something that can be attributed to ideals that keep its capital of Montpeiler the only one in the U.S. without a McDonalds.

Vermont’s strengths include its number one position for all health determinants combined which includes ranking in the top 10 states for a high rate of high school graduation, a low violent crime rate, a low percentage of children in poverty, high per capita public health funding, a low rate of uninsured population and ready availability of primary care physicians. Vermont’s two challenges are low immunization coverage with 89.8 percent of children ages 19 to 35 months receiving recommended immunizations and a high prevalence of binge drinking at 17.3 percent of the population. (http://www.americashealthrankings.org/measure/2010/overall.aspx) Read more at healthfreedoms.org

If you concentrate animals as is the way now and you feed them food they should not eat - you have to give them antibiotics.

The system is an arms race with only collapse at the end. There will be another way even if you don't want to change this for Mother Nature will enforce her laws first.

Amplify’d from www.wired.com

This afternoon, the Food and Drug Administration posted without fanfare a report that many people have been waiting a long time for: Its first-ever estimate of the amount of antibiotics sold for use in food animals in the United States.

And the number is: almost 29 million pounds in 2009.

The reason why antibiotic use on farms is a concern, of course, is because such use stimulates the emergence of drug-resistant organisms that move off the farm in animals, in groundwater, in dust, on the wind and in the systems and on the clothes of those who work there, and makes new resistance factors available to be swapped among bacteria. (For much more about that, see these three posts and this long archive at my former blog.)

Update 2: A day after the release of this report, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), author of PAMTA and a public-health microbiologist, commented on the data — and also said she’ll be reintroducing the legislation again in the next Congress in January.

This report illustrates the overuse of antibiotics in food animal production and makes a strong case for some common-sense limits on antibiotic use. We are putting millions of pounds of antibiotics into the food supply unnecessarily every year. This cannot continue and it’s my hope that these new data from the FDA will encourage even more members of Congress to join me next year when I reintroduce this legislation.  Moreover, the FDA must move fast to issue strong regulations on antibiotic usage in agriculture. Read more at www.wired.com

Typical - we focus on the obvious - acute illness - and we IGNORE the chronic disease that is where the greater health issue lies - obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer etc.

Not even the antibiotics issue is raised.

Science has a lot to answer for and why did not the NYT add this missing factor in the article - they could have - it was the first thing that came to my mind - but they too can only see what is in front of their nose.

No wonder we are all so ignorant!

Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com

In a pair of research reports made public on Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that about 48 million people a year get sick from tainted food, down from the previous, often-cited estimate of 76 million. The number of deaths estimated to come from food poisoning also went down, to about 3,000 a year from 5,000.

The revision means that one in six Americans gets sick each year from tainted food, not one in four, as the old study, conducted in 1999, projected.

But that does not mean that food poisoning is declining or that farms and factories are producing safer food. Instead, officials said, the government’s researchers are just getting better at calculating how much foodborne illness is out there. Read more at www.nytimes.com

This is progress - in a nation that is split on ideology on most things - there is little doubt anywhere that school lunches offer a real step forward for the health of the nation

Amplify’d from www.pbs.org

President Obama has signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 into law, a major victory in First Lady Michelle Obama's crusade against child obesity and hunger. The bill increases federal funding for school lunches - by about six cents per meal - for the first time in more than three decades. The child nutrition legislation, which was approved unanimously in the Senate in August and recently passed the House by a vote of 264 to 157, gives the Secretary of Agriculture the power to set standards for foods sold in schools, including items in "a la carte" lines and vending machines. The legislation also combats child hunger by making more than 100,000 children on Medicaid eligible for free lunches. A controversial provision in the law regulates the price of lunches served to children from families that earn more than 185 percent of the poverty level. The Congressional Budget Office has said this provision will require some schools to raise their meal prices. Margo Wootan, Director of Nutrition Policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, says that while definitive nutrition standards are yet to be determined by the Department of Agriculture, the bill represents a major change for the quality of food in the nation's schools. "This child nutrition bill gets a lot of junk food out of schools and a lot of healthier food into schools," said Wootan. "It is a historic step toward reducing childhood obesity and helping parents feed their children better." Read more at www.pbs.org

The truth is starting to seep out

Amplify’d from www.grist.org

Animals in factory farms get daily doses of antibiotics, both to keep them alive in their stressful, unsanitary conditions and to make them grow faster. What's the annual volume of antibiotic use on factory farms? The question is a critical one, because the practice has given rise to a novel strain of antibiotic-resistant staph (MRSA), known as ST398, that's widely present in our vast hog and chicken factories. Well, federal regulators have for years ignored the question and refused to release estimates of just how much antibiotics the livestock industry burns through. But that ended yesterday, when the FDA released its first-ever report on the topic. The answer: 29 million pounds in 2009. According to ace public-health reporter Maryn McKenna, that's a shitload. (I'm paraphrasing her.) Read more at www.grist.org