Buy Local! Eat Organic! Don't Support Poisonous Food!

I started thinking seriously about my eating habits two years ago. I performed a detox fast that opened my eyes to how everything I consume affects how I feel each and every day.

After purging meat, dairy, alcohol, nicotine, and environmental toxins out of my body I began to reevaluate how the simple foods I eat make me feel. I slept better, woke up regenerated and felt more energy throughout the day.

Instead of focusing on just what is easiest to prepare or quickest meal to have, I started looking at a balanced, healthy way of looking at food.

Most of all I started looking into where my food was coming from.

Through research about how animals area treated in mass producing farms and how antibiotics fed to animals may be the cause for the sweeping immunity people have to antibiotics that help sickness, I realized that the conventional meat packing industry had nothing to offer worth buying.



Yet again we are confronted in the United States with a health recall that leaves hundreds sick and a nation wary. The factory farms Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms of Iowa are sister companies that distributed the eggs poisoned with salmonella.

More than a half of a billion eggs are recalled.

The Wall Street Journal said in an article today, "cases of salmonella were reported as early as May. In all, more than half a billion eggs from two Iowa producers have been recalled, the most recently on Sunday night when Moark LLC of Fontana, Calif., said it was recalling nearly 300,000 eggs, the Associated Press reported, that came from one of the two Iowa farms."

The jurisdiction to supervise eggs during production and then after distribution may now be shared between the USDA and FDA due to proposed legislation, but this is only after people got sick.

The FDA still does not have authority to recall food if they think there is a problem, they can only act when a company reports health problems with consumers. The FDA doesn't have the power.

Self-regulation from factory farms, that's the frightening part.

The Associated Press released that in 1997, DeCoster Egg Farms agreed to pay $2 million in fines to settle citations for health and safety violations at DeCoster's farm in Maine. The nation's labor secretary at the time, Robert Reich, said conditions were "as dangerous and oppressive as any sweatshop."

Company owner Austin "Jack" DeCoster admitted to 10 civil counts of animal cruelty in Maine after a nonprofit animal welfare group conducted an undercover video investigation, according to a CNN report.

These type of factory farms can be found all over the country.

I was shocked to drive down the 5 freeway for the first time to see cows crammed together, wallowing in their own filth, as far as the eye can see. Literally for miles.

Much of the investigation so far has been centered on restaurants in California, Colorado, Minnesota and North Carolina, WSJ reports, and looking at restaurants in Santa Monica, it's hard not to see that people are staying away.

It's hard not to notice that the community breakfast joint, OP Cafe, has been scarcely as full as it is usually is. More than one customer said today how they were surprised to find a seat around lunch time, let alone be able to walk right up to the register.

Recalled eggs fraught with salmonella have been removed from the shelves, but consumers are still looking at the label. Maybe I should say finally.

It's time to get heated and start buying smarter.


There is no other option than to think about where food is coming from. What we are willing to sacrifice for price and convenience?

Buying local and organic is the only answer to factory farms that breed cruelty and disregard human safety in the pursuit of profit.

It is foolish to think that consumers do not have the loudest effect on the market. Stop buying unsafe food.

Don't think that a few eggs left on the shelf in replacement for a few organic, free-range cartons will make a difference?

Look at your local BP gas station. There is a reason why they are 20-30 cents cheaper than the 76 across the street. Money talks, especially in a recession.

The government no longer protects citizens over big business. After one of the highest grossing campaigns in history in this country, government is big business.

Supporting local farms and visiting farmers markets not only keeps the economy flowing and creates a sense of community, but fair farming practices ensure a healthier body and earth.

I only buy antibiotic free, free-range and organic eggs and meat when I do eat them. The few extra dollars are worth the peace of mind.

Take it from someone who is still waiting on free national Health Care.


Although most eggs have been swiftly removed from shelves, here is a complete list of egg suppliers and brands that have been recalled. Let your local diners and restaurants know you want local and peace of mind.

So I think it's time to start riding bikes and hugging trees

It's tempting to believe that the Gulf spill, like so many disasters inherited by Obama, was the fault of the Texas oilman who preceded him in office. But, though George W. Bush paved the way for the catastrophe, it was Obama who gave BP the green light to drill. "Bush owns eight years of the mess," says Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican from California. "But after more than a year on the job, ( Interior Secretary Ken) Salazar owns it too."

President Obama in Port Fourchon, Louisiana, May 28, 2010.

McNamee/Getty

By Tim Dickinson

Jun 08, 2010 4:30 PM EDT

This article originally appeared in RS 1107 from June 24, 2010.

On May 27th, more than a month into the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, Barack Obama strode to the podium in the East Room of the White House. For weeks, the administration had been insisting that BP alone was to blame for the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf – and the ongoing failure to stop the massive leak. "They have the technical expertise to plug the hole," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs had said only six days earlier. "It is their responsibility." The president, Gibbs added, lacked the authority to play anything more than a supervisory role – a curious line of argument from an administration that has reserved the right to assassinate American citizens abroad and has nationalized much of the auto industry. "If BP is not accomplishing the task, can you just federalize it?" a reporter asked. "No," Gibbs replied.

Now, however, the president was suddenly standing up to take command of the cleanup effort. "In case you were wondering who's responsible," Obama told the nation, "I take responsibility." Sounding chastened, he acknowledged that his administration had failed to adequately reform the Minerals Management Service, the scandal-ridden federal agency that for years had essentially allowed the oil industry to self-regulate. "There wasn't sufficient urgency," the president said. "Absolutely I take responsibility for that." He also admitted that he had been too credulous of the oil giants: "I was wrong in my belief that the oil companies had their act together when it came to worst-case scenarios." He unveiled a presidential commission to investigate the disaster, discussed the resignation of the head of MMS, and extended a moratorium on new deepwater drilling. "The buck," he reiterated the next day on the sullied Louisiana coastline, "stops with me."

What didn't stop was the gusher. Hours before the president's press conference, an ominous plume of oil six miles wide and 22 miles long was discovered snaking its way toward Mobile Bay from BP's wellhead next to the wreckage of its Deepwater Horizon rig. Admiral Thad Allen, the U.S. commander overseeing the cleanup, framed the spill explicitly as an invasion: "The enemy is coming ashore," he said. Louisiana beaches were assaulted by blobs of oil that began to seep beneath the sand; acres of marshland at the "Bird's Foot," where the Mississippi meets the Gulf, were befouled by shit-brown crude – a death sentence for wetlands that serve as the cradle for much of the region's vital marine life. By the time Obama spoke, it was increasingly evident that this was not merely an ecological disaster. It was the most devastating assault on American soil since 9/11.

Like the attacks by Al Qaeda, the disaster in the Gulf was preceded by ample warnings – yet the administration had ignored them. Instead of cracking down on MMS, as he had vowed to do even before taking office, Obama left in place many of the top officials who oversaw the agency's culture of corruption. He permitted it to rubber-stamp dangerous drilling operations by BP – a firm with the worst safety record of any oil company – with virtually no environmental safeguards, using industry-friendly regulations drafted during the Bush years. He calibrated his response to the Gulf spill based on flawed and misleading estimates from BP – and then deployed his top aides to lowball the flow rate at a laughable 5,000 barrels a day, long after the best science made clear this catastrophe would eclipse the Exxon Valdez.

...

Except that it didn't. Salazar did little to tamp down on the lawlessness at MMS, beyond referring a few employees for criminal prosecution and ending a Bush-era program that allowed oil companies to make their "royalty" payments – the amount they owe taxpayers for extracting a scarce public resource – not in cash but in crude. And instead of putting the brakes on new offshore drilling, Salazar immediately throttled it up to record levels. Even though he had scrapped the Bush plan, Salazar put 53 million offshore acres up for lease in the Gulf in his first year alone – an all-time high. The aggressive leasing came as no surprise, given Salazar's track record. "This guy has a long, long history of promoting offshore oil drilling – that's his thing," says Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. "He's got a highly specific soft spot for offshore oil drilling." As a senator, Salazar not only steered passage of the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, which opened 8 million acres in the Gulf to drilling, he even criticized President Bush for not forcing oil companies to develop existing leases faster.

For the entire article visit Rolling Stone:
The Spill, The Scandal and the President | Rolling Stone Politics