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Why Composting is the Most Important Thing You Can Do for the Environment

I recently had a friend come to me and tell me she wanted to try a new eco-friendly toothpaste. She was interested in going zero waste with her oral care while supporting small business, and she wanted my help. 

This article was originally published on Midtown Composting

Of course, a “zero waste” toothpaste that you buy at the store is not truly zero waste. It is quite literally impossible to produce such products with no waste. After consideration, I realized that most people who are interested in the “zero waste” trend are not genuinely interested in radically reducing their consumption. If someone truly wanted to get as close to “zero waste” as possible they would simply make their own toothpaste instead of looking for the right product to buy. It seems people are really just trying to feel better about their consumption habits. It only makes sense that in our capitalistic society we instinctually gravitate towards supporting small businesses before we consider seriously reducing our consumption.

I am happy to report that my friend is very excited about making her own toothpaste and has yet again surprised me by being better than average.

When I was a young teenager, I remember the first time I read about how bad plastic straws were for the environment and the damage they do to wildlife. I was outraged, so naturally, I did what anyone would do. I hopped online and found the next product to purchase: the “zero waste” metal straws from amazon. I could drink my restaurant drinks with a reusable straw while looking down upon those who continued to use their disposable straws. It didn’t occur to me to skip the straw when I went out to eat. It didn’t occur to me to eat out less. And the environmental impact of ordering my “zero waste” products from Amazon, of all places, didn’t occur to me either. 

I went deeper into my trendy, eco-friendly lifestyle. One day, I said to my stepfather, “I need a zero waste travel utensil kit!”

He looked at me, perplexed, and said, “Why not just… bring a set of utensils from home?” I scoffed, annoyed that he would ask such a ridiculous question – one that I did not have the answer to. It would take several years and quite a shift in lifestyle for me to realize that what I thought was a desire to eliminate waste was in fact a desire to purchase new products to make me feel better about myself rather than to actually live a zero-waste lifestyle. 

I know that I am not alone in my desire to truly want to do better and to be a better steward of our Earth. So, besides reducing our consumption, which we should all be doing, what’s the best thing that we as individuals can do for the environment right now? It’s not using metal straws or switching to an eco-friendly toothpaste or even buying a Tesla. If you’re not already doing this, the most significant thing you can do for the betterment of our environment is to compost your food waste!

If you’re like most people, the first thing you might be wondering is, “What about recycling?” Composting is a form of recycling (the best kind!). But does composting food waste impact the environment as positively as household recycling? If you’re already recycling, riding your bike to work, reducing your consumption, and feeling too busy to take on another daily task, is composting food waste really worth your time?

Or maybe you’ve been hearing about how our country’s recycling is simply getting thrown away into landfills because China doesn’t want our recycling anymore. Maybe you’re disillusioned with recycling and don’t want to start a new chore that doesn’t really make a difference. Is composting our food waste really going to make that much of a difference?

To answer these questions, let’s ask another question first: What if you could only do one? Hypothetically, what if you could either compost your food waste or recycle your trash, but you couldn’t do both? Which would make the most difference?

Let’s compare the beneficial impacts of both.

So, Just How Much Food Waste do We Generate?

Research from the American Journal of Agricultural Economics shows that the average American household throws away 31.9% (nearly 220 pounds per person) of its food a year. This adds up to a grand total of $240 billion dollars worth of food nationwide and 50 billion pounds of food. Outside of our own kitchens, 72 billion pounds of food is thrown away at restaurants, grocery stores, farms, etc. America wastes nearly twice as much food as other developed countries, a total of 122 billion pounds of food waste each year. 

It’s easy to read numbers like that and think, “Wow. That’s a lot of food waste.” But have you ever tried to comprehend how much a billion actually is? Chances are you would have no concept of the size of a billion pounds of food waste. If you’re curious, the video below breaks down how big a billion is compared to a million. 

Now, we’re not just talking about one billion, we’re talking about 122 billion pounds. A pound is a lot bigger than a dime, and 122 is a lot bigger than one.

Now that you understand that you can’t really comprehend how much a billion is, how do you go about comprehending the enormity of 122 billion pounds? 

The Eiffel Tower takes up about 26,240,000 million cubic feet of space. One cubic foot has the capacity to hold 43.9 pounds of food waste. That means we could conceivably stuff an Eiffel Tower-shaped pyramid with 597,722 pounds of food waste.

We generate 122 billion pounds of food waste, a year, in America alone. That’s around 334,000,000 pounds of food a day. So, in one day, America can fill up 559 Eiffel Towers with food waste. 

In one year, with 122 billion pounds of food waste, America could fill 204,108 Eiffel Towers full of food waste. 

What Happens to All that Food Waste?

Obviously, 122 billion pounds of food waste leaves behind quite a footprint. Food production accounts for more than a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions. In the production process alone (working the land, growing, harvesting, transporting, and packaging) 3.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere.

Then there’s the food that is thrown away. When food ends up in landfills, it produces greenhouse gases. If food waste was its own country, it would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, behind China and the U.S, respectively. 

Food waste sent to landfills produces a 50-50 gas mixture of carbon dioxide and methane. Methane is said to contribute to global warming at a rate of 25 times that of carbon dioxide, as it is 25 times more effective at trapping solar radiation. Food scraps being transported to landfills typically travel much farther than food waste that is being composted. It’s estimated that garbage trucks in the city average 3 miles per gallon. Food waste can travel up to 500 miles before reaching its final destination. When all is said and done, every pound of food thrown away generated an average of 3.8 pounds of carbon-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions.

The EPA’s data estimates that in 2017 a total of 535.6 billion pounds of municipal solid waste (MSW) was generated (a lot of Eiffel towers). Out of that, 81.4 billion pounds was compostable waste. Some of this waste (54 billion pounds) was composted. The majority of what gets composted is yard waste. Food waste makes up 1% of what gets composted (5.4 billion pounds). Yet food waste was the second largest contributor to municipal solid waste behind paper trash (including cardboard). The United States composted only 2.6 million tons of waste while recycling 67 million tons of waste in 2017.

Okay, What about Recycling?

Unfortunately, only a small portion of the plastic produced each year actually gets recycled. A total of 35.4 million tons of plastic waste was generated in 2017. Only 3 million tons of this was actually recycled, while 26.8 million tons of plastic ended up in landfills, making up for nearly 20% of all MSW in landfills. The rest was combusted.

Amongst the natural resources saved from recycling glass, one ton of recycled glass prevents 700 pounds of carbon dioxide from being released into the air. Paper makes up 40% of our trash. With every ton of paper recycled, we reduce greenhouse gases by one ton of carbon equivalent. The same is true for cardboard. For each ton of cardboard recycled, around 1 ton of CO2 emissions is saved. Aluminum, steel, and tin can be recycled endlessly. Glass can be endlessly recycled without altering the purity or quality. Plastic and paper cannot be endlessly recycled. Paper can be recycled an average of 5 times, whereas plastic can be recycled an average of 7 times.

Carbon Sequestration

That being said, composting does more than just prevent the emissions of greenhouse gases from food rot. Composting sequesters carbon back into the environment and adds nutrients back into the ground. Whendee Silver, a UC Berkeley bio-geochemist, conducted an experiment in an attempt to effectively sequester carbon. The results of the experiment show that a one-time application of a half-inch layer of compost on rangeland can boost the soil’s carbon storage for up to 30 years. After spreading compost over the rangeland, there has been a significant increase in native perennial plants and birdlife. Healthy soil is an essential part of growing food. In order to have healthy soil, we have to give back to the earth.

Vermont is one of the few states in the US that has composting laws in place. If all 600,000+ people in Vermont were to participate in the composting program and each person generates 50kg (around 110 pounds) of compost, Vermont would generate around 31,350 tons of compost. Each ton of compost generated sequesters somewhere between 0.01- 1.00 ton of carbon dioxide from the soil. In Vermont alone, 15,675 tons of carbon could be sequestered (assuming each ton of compost sequesters 0.05 tons of carbon dioxide). If everyone in Vermont composted instead of using fertilizer, an additional 3,135 tons of carbon dioxide could be saved for a total of 18,810 tons of CO2. On a national scale, we could sequester more than a billion pounds of carbon into the soil if everyone composted. The amount of carbon sequestered in the soil depends on how well the soil is cared for, as well as what is in the compost. Soil that is well cared for does not have as much potential to sequester carbon as soil that has been neglected. Compost that is higher in nutrients also has a higher potential for carbon sequestration.

So, What’s Better? Composting or Recycling?

The EPA has a chart that breaks down how much CO2 equivalent we saved based on how much of each material was recycled or composted. When you break this down based on the EPA’s numbers, recycling paper and paper board result in the most CO2 saved (3.35 million tons of CO2 saved per ton of paper recycled), with metals in a close second (3.31 million tons), and composting food scraps in third place (2.68 million tons).

However, when you combine all recycled materials and compare it to composting food waste, things are almost tied. Recycling saves 2.71 million tons of CO2 equivalent for each ton of material recycled. Composting saved 2.68 million tons of CO2 equivalent for every ton of food waste composted.

So according to the EPA, it would look like composting and recycling have about the same environmental impact, depending on how much recycling and food waste one has to dispose of. In other words, from what the EPA is saying, if you could only do one, you would want to choose based on which weighed more: your recyclables or your food waste.

But this isn’t quite accurate. The EPA only looks at the CO2 saved by not throwing waste into a landfill. The EPA does account for the carbon sequestered into the ground when you use compost. Each ton of compost has the ability to sequester on average 0.5 tons of carbon. This puts the total amount of CO2 equivalent saved in composting above the amount of CO2 equivalent saved in recycling.

The next time you throw a piece of single-use plastic into the recycling bin for the environment, remember that you don’t really know where that plastic is going and if it’ll even be recycled. Composting is easy. You can do it at home in your yard, and you will know exactly where that compost is going and what it’s doing for the environment. Or you can compost with a local pick up or drop off service and find out what they’re doing with their compost. If you’re interested in how you can get started with composting, check out this article.

The purpose of this article is not to discourage recycling in favor of composting. We should all be growing as much of our own food as we can, composting, recycling, and reducing our consumption.

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How Crisco toppled lard – and made Americans believers in industrial food

Perhaps you’ll unearth a can of Crisco for the holiday baking season. If so, you’ll be one of millions of Americans who have, for generations, used it to make cookies, cakes, pie crusts and more.

Republished from The Conversation

But for all Crisco’s popularity, what exactly is that thick, white substance in the can?

If you’re not sure, you’re not alone.

For decades, Crisco had only one ingredient, cottonseed oil. But most consumers never knew that. That ignorance was no accident.

A century ago, Crisco’s marketers pioneered revolutionary advertising techniques that encouraged consumers not to worry about ingredients and instead to put their trust in reliable brands. It was a successful strategy that other companies would eventually copy.

Related: Stop Eating Like That and Start Eating Like This – Your Guide to Homeostasis Through Diet

Lard gets some competition

For most of the 19th century, cotton seeds were a nuisance. When cotton gins combed the South’s ballooning cotton harvests to produce clean fiber, they left mountains of seeds behind. Early attempts to mill those seeds resulted in oil that was unappealingly dark and smelly. Many farmers just let their piles of cottonseed rot.

It was only after a chemist named David Wesson pioneered industrial bleaching and deodorizing techniques in the late 19th century that cottonseed oil became clear, tasteless and neutral-smelling enough to appeal to consumers. Soon, companies were selling cottonseed oil by itself as a liquid or mixing it with animal fats to make cheap, solid shortenings, sold in pails to resemble lard.

Cottolene, made from a mix of cottonseed oil and beef fat, was one of the first commercial shortenings.

Alan and Shirley Brocker Sliker Collection, MSS 314, Special Collections, Michigan State University Libraries

Shortening’s main rival was lard. Earlier generations of Americans had produced lard at home after autumn pig slaughters, but by the late 19th century meat processing companies were making lard on an industrial scale. Lard had a noticeable pork taste, but there’s not much evidence that 19th-century Americans objected to it, even in cakes and pies. Instead, its issue was cost. While lard prices stayed relatively high through the early 20th century, cottonseed oil was abundant and cheap.

Americans, at the time, overwhelmingly associated cotton with dresses, shirts and napkins, not food.

Nonetheless, early cottonseed oil and shortening companies went out of their way to highlight their connection to cotton. They touted the transformation of cottonseed from pesky leftover to useful consumer product as a mark of ingenuity and progress. Brands like Cottolene and Cotosuet drew attention to cotton with their names and by incorporating images of cotton in their advertising.

Related: Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections 

King Crisco

When Crisco launched in 1911, it did things differently.

Like other brands, it was made from cottonseed. But it was also a new kind of fat – the world’s first solid shortening made entirely from a once-liquid plant oil. Instead of solidifying cottonseed oil by mixing it with animal fat like the other brands, Crisco used a brand-new process called hydrogenation, which Procter & Gamble, the creator of Crisco, had perfected after years of research and development.

From the beginning, the company’s marketers talked a lot about the marvels of hydrogenation – what they called “the Crisco process” – but avoided any mention of cottonseed. There was no law at the time mandating that food companies list ingredients, although virtually all food packages provided at least enough information to answer that most fundamental of all questions: What is it?

Crisco’s marketers were keen to avoid any mention of cottonseed in the brand’s ads. Alan and ShirBrocker Sliker Collection, MSS 314, Special Collections, Michigan State University Libraries.

In contrast, Crisco marketers offered only evasion and euphemism. Crisco was made from “100% shortening,” its marketing materials asserted, and “Crisco is Crisco, and nothing else.” Sometimes they gestured towards the plant kingdom: Crisco was “strictly vegetable,” “purely vegetable” or “absolutely all vegetable.” At their most specific, advertisements said it was made from “vegetable oil,” a relatively new phrase that Crisco helped to popularize.

But why go to all this trouble to avoid mentioning cottonseed oil if consumers were already knowingly buying it from other companies?

The truth was that cottonseed had a mixed reputation, and it was only getting worse by the time Crisco launched. A handful of unscrupulous companies were secretly using cheap cottonseed oil to cut costly olive oil, so some consumers thought of it as an adulterant. Others associated cottonseed oil with soap or with its emerging industrial uses in dyes, roofing tar and explosives. Still others read alarming headlines about how cottonseed meal contained a toxic compound, even though cottonseed oil itself contained none of it.

Instead of dwelling on its problematic sole ingredient, then, Crisco’s marketers kept consumer focus trained on brand reliability and the purity of modern factory food processing.

Crisco flew off the shelves. Unlike lard, Crisco had a neutral taste. Unlike butter, Crisco could last for years on the shelf. Unlike olive oil, it had a high smoking temperature for frying. At the same time, since Crisco was the only solid shortening made entirely from plants, it was prized by Jewish consumers who followed dietary restrictions forbidding the mixing of meat and dairy in a single meal.

In just five years, Americans were annually buying more than 60 million cans of Crisco, the equivalent of three cans for every family in the country. Within a generation, lard went from being a major part of American diets to an old-fashioned ingredient.

Trust the brand, not the ingredients

Today, Crisco has replaced cottonseed oil with palm, soy and canola oils. But cottonseed oil is still one of the most widely consumed edible oils in the country. It’s a routine ingredient in processed foods, and it’s commonplace in restaurant fryers.

Crisco would have never become a juggernaut without its aggressive advertising campaigns that stressed the purity and modernity of factory production and the reliability of the Crisco name. In the wake of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act – which made it illegal to adulterate or mislabel food products and boosted consumer confidence – Crisco helped convince Americans that they didn’t need to understand the ingredients in processed foods, as long as those foods came from a trusted brand.

In the decades that followed Crisco’s launch, other companies followed its lead, introducing products like Spam, Cheetos and Froot Loops with little or no reference to their ingredients.

Early packaging for Cheetos simply advertised the snack as ‘cheese-flavored puffs.’

Once ingredient labeling was mandated in the U.S. in the late 1960s, the multisyllabic ingredients in many highly processed foods may have mystified consumers. But for the most part, they kept on eating.

So if you don’t find it strange to eat foods whose ingredients you don’t know or understand, you have Crisco partly to thank.

You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter. ]




Harvard Immunologist: Unvaccinated Children Pose Zero Risk

An open letter written by Tetyana Obukhanych, a Harvard immunologist, has has been circulating around the internet again. We thought it worth republishing. She wrote the letter back in 2015 in response to vaccine legislation. She makes a strong case for unvaccinated children not endangering the rest of the public.

Recommended Reading: Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases

Dear Legislator:

My name is Tetyana Obukhanych. I hold a PhD in Immunology. I am writing this letter in the hope that it will correct several common misperceptions about vaccines in order to help you formulate a fair and balanced understanding that is supported by accepted vaccine theory and new scientific findings.

Do unvaccinated children pose a higher threat to the public than the vaccinated?

It is often stated that those who choose not to vaccinate their children for reasons of conscience endanger the rest of the public, and this is the rationale behind most of the legislation to end vaccine exemptions currently being considered by federal and state legislators country-wide. You should be aware that the nature of protection afforded by many modern vaccines – and that includes most of the vaccines recommended by the CDC for children – is not consistent with such a statement. I have outlined below the recommended vaccines that cannot prevent transmission of disease either because they are not designed to prevent the transmission of infection (rather, they are intended to prevent disease symptoms), or because they are for non-communicable diseases. People who have not received the vaccines mentioned below pose no higher threat to the general public than those who have, implying that discrimination against non-immunized children in a public school setting may not be warranted.

  1. IPV (inactivated poliovirus vaccine) cannot prevent transmission of poliovirus. Wild poliovirus has been non-existent in the USA for at least two decades. Even if wild poliovirus were to be re-imported by travel, vaccinating for polio with IPV cannot affect the safety of public spaces. Please note that wild poliovirus eradication is attributed to the use of a different vaccine, OPV or oral poliovirus vaccine. Despite being capable of preventing wild poliovirus transmission, use of OPV was phased out long ago in the USA and replaced with IPV due to safety concerns.
  2. Tetanus is not a contagious disease, but rather acquired from deep-puncture wounds contaminated with C. tetani spores. Vaccinating for tetanus (via the DTaP combination vaccine) cannot alter the safety of public spaces; it is intended to render personal protection only.
  3. While intended to prevent the disease-causing effects of the diphtheria toxin, the diphtheria toxoid vaccine (also contained in the DTaP vaccine) is not designed to prevent colonization and transmission of C. diphtheriae. Vaccinating for diphtheria cannot alter the safety of public spaces; it is likewise intended for personal protection only.
  4. The acellular pertussis (aP) vaccine (the final element of the DTaP combined vaccine), now in use in the USA, replaced the whole cell pertussis vaccine in the late 1990s, which was followed by an unprecedented resurgence of whooping cough. An experiment with deliberate pertussis infection in primates revealed that the aP vaccine is not capable of preventing colonization and transmission of B. pertussis. The FDA has issued a warning regarding this crucial finding.Furthermore, the 2013 meeting of the Board of Scientific Counselors at the CDC revealed additional alarming data that pertussis variants (PRN-negative strains) currently circulating in the USA acquired a selective advantage to infect those who are up-to-date for their DTaP boosters, meaning that people who are up-to-date are more likely to be infected, and thus contagious, than people who are not vaccinated.
  5. Among numerous types of H. influenzae, the Hib vaccine covers only type b. Despite its sole intention to reduce symptomatic and asymptomatic (disease-less) Hib carriage, the introduction of the Hib vaccine has inadvertently shifted strain dominance towards other types of H. influenzae (types a through f).These types have been causing invasive disease of high severity and increasing incidence in adults in the era of Hib vaccination of children. The general population is more vulnerable to the invasive disease now than it was prior to the start of the Hib vaccination campaign. Discriminating against children who are not vaccinated for Hib does not make any scientific sense in the era of non-type b H. influenzae disease.
  6. Hepatitis B is a blood-borne virus. It does not spread in a community setting, especially among children who are unlikely to engage in high-risk behaviors, such as needle sharing or sex. Vaccinating children for hepatitis B cannot significantly alter the safety of public spaces. Further, school admission is not prohibited for children who are chronic hepatitis B carriers. To prohibit school admission for those who are simply unvaccinated – and do not even carry hepatitis B – would constitute unreasonable and illogical discrimination.

In summary, a person who is not vaccinated with IPV, DTaP, HepB, and Hib vaccines due to reasons of conscience poses no extra danger to the public than a person who is. No discrimination is warranted.

How often do serious vaccine adverse events happen?

It is often stated that vaccination rarely leads to serious adverse events. Unfortunately, this statement is not supported by science. A recent study done in Ontario, Canada, established that vaccination actually leads to an emergency room visit for 1 in 168 children following their 12-month vaccination appointment and for 1 in 730 children following their 18-month vaccination appointment.

When the risk of an adverse event requiring an ER visit after well-baby vaccinations is demonstrably so high, vaccination must remain a choice for parents, who may understandably be unwilling to assume this immediate risk in order to protect their children from diseases that are generally considered mild or that their children may never be exposed to.

Can discrimination against families who oppose vaccines for reasons of conscience prevent future disease outbreaks of communicable viral diseases, such as measles?

Measles research scientists have for a long time been aware of the “measles paradox.” I quote from the article by Poland & Jacobson (1994) “Failure to Reach the Goal of Measles Elimination: Apparent Paradox of Measles Infections in Immunized Persons.” Arch Intern Med 154:1815-1820:

“The apparent paradox is that as measles immunization rates rise to high levels in a population, measles becomes a disease of immunized persons.”

Further research determined that behind the “measles paradox” is a fraction of the population called low vaccine responders. Low-responders are those who respond poorly to the first dose of the measles vaccine. These individuals then mount a weak immune response to subsequent RE-vaccination and quickly return to the pool of “susceptibles’’ within 2-5 years, despite being fully vaccinated.

Re-vaccination cannot correct low-responsiveness: it appears to be an immuno-genetic trait. The proportion of low-responders among children was estimated to be 4.7% in the USA.

Studies of measles outbreaks in Quebec, Canada, and China attest that outbreaks of measles still happen, even when vaccination compliance is in the highest bracket (95-97% or even 99%). This is because even in high vaccine responders, vaccine-induced antibodies wane over time. Vaccine immunity does not equal life-long immunity acquired after natural exposure.

It has been documented that vaccinated persons who develop breakthrough measles are contagious. In fact, two major measles outbreaks in 2011 (in Quebec, Canada, and in New York, NY) were re-imported by previously vaccinated individuals.

Taken together, these data make it apparent that elimination of vaccine exemptions, currently only utilized by a small percentage of families anyway, will neither solve the problem of disease resurgence nor prevent re-importation and outbreaks of previously eliminated diseases.

Is discrimination against conscientious vaccine objectors the only practical solution?

The majority of measles cases in recent US outbreaks (including the recent Disneyland outbreak) are adults and very young babies, whereas in the pre-vaccination era, measles occurred mainly between the ages 1 and 15. Natural exposure to measles was followed by lifelong immunity from re-infection, whereas vaccine immunity wanes over time, leaving adults unprotected by their childhood shots. Measles is more dangerous for infants and for adults than for school-aged children.

Despite high chances of exposure in the pre-vaccination era, measles practically never happened in babies much younger than one year of age due to the robust maternal immunity transfer mechanism. The vulnerability of very young babies to measles today is the direct outcome of the prolonged mass vaccination campaign of the past, during which their mothers, themselves vaccinated in their childhood, were not able to experience measles naturally at a safe school age and establish the lifelong immunity that would also be transferred to their babies and protect them from measles for the first year of life.

Luckily, a therapeutic backup exists to mimic now-eroded maternal immunity. Infants as well as other vulnerable or immunocompromised individuals, are eligible to receive immunoglobulin, a potentially life-saving measure that supplies antibodies directed against the virus to prevent or ameliorate disease upon exposure.

In summary: 1) due to the properties of modern vaccines, non-vaccinated individuals pose no greater risk of transmission of polio, diphtheria, pertussis, and numerous non-type b H. influenzae strains than vaccinated individuals do, non-vaccinated individuals pose virtually no danger of transmission of hepatitis B in a school setting, and tetanus is not transmissible at all; 2) there is a significantly elevated risk of emergency room visits after childhood vaccination appointments attesting that vaccination is not risk-free; 3) outbreaks of measles cannot be entirely prevented even if we had nearly perfect vaccination compliance; and 4) an effective method of preventing measles and other viral diseases in vaccine-ineligible infants and the immunocompromised, immunoglobulin, is available for those who may be exposed to these diseases.

Taken together, these four facts make it clear that discrimination in a public school setting against children who are not vaccinated for reasons of conscience is completely unwarranted as the vaccine status of conscientious objectors poses no undue public health risk.

Sincerely Yours,

~ Tetyana Obukhanych, PhD

Tetyana Obukhanych, PhD, is the author of the book Vaccine Illusion.  She has studied immunology in some of the world’s most prestigious medical institutions. She earned her PhD in Immunology at the Rockefeller University in New York and did postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA and Stanford University in California.

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Ugly Fruit & Veggies May Pack Extra Nutrients – Get to Know Them!

(Dr. Mercola) A new initiative has been spawned in the U.S., patterned after a similar effort in France focused on marketing unlovely produce such as “the grotesque apple and the ridiculous potato.”

The premise is built on the realization that just because these foods may have an inferior exterior in comparison with the beautiful darlings on display in fruit baskets, it doesn’t mean they’re not edible and nutritious.

Especially in wealthy countries like the U.S., it’s only the most perfect specimens that grace produce shelves — the crop version of the Rockettes, all having the same shape, uniform skin and general appeal.

For the Love of Ugly

One of the biggest flaws in society is that perfection is practically deified. One thing this ideal has led to is the wholesale waste of fresh, misfit produce that has been deemed unmarketable.

The downside of having plenty is that people feel they have room to be discriminating.

Anything “flawed” needs to go away, so it does — into the garbage heap. Unfortunately, the amount of pitched fruits and vegetables has been estimated at around one-third of what is produced — around 133 billion pounds of food per year.

The sad fact is we’re all to blame. Whether we’re consumers who allow good food to deteriorate in little plastic coffins in our refrigerators, or obsessive “safety first” freaks who actually believe they should purge anything past its so-called “sell-by” date, there aren’t many of us who aren’t guilty of this type of squander.

Growers sorting bumper crops of fruits and vegetables for the marketplace regularly toss produce that isn’t necessarily the best looking, or they simply plow it under.

Food is the Largest Material in U.S. Landfills

Fresh foods are perishable, obviously, but rather than finding someone close by who needs it, the easiest course is to cart it to the nearest landfill. In fact, these once viable foods are what take up the most space in landfills. According to one PBS article:

“Now food is the largest material in our landfills. Of all the things that are in our dumps, the biggest portion is food. And when it rots in a landfill, it emits methane, which is a very potent greenhouse gas, 30 or 100 times more potent than carbon dioxide.”1

A cauliflower, for instance, might have yellow patches; it might just be considered too large. Although it’s crispy, tasty — everything a cauliflower is supposed to be — these are routinely rejected. Perfectly fine peaches that aren’t flawless perfection might end up as cattle feed.

There are multiple points at which waste is generated in a growing operation. One of the problems farmers have is that when prices fluctuate between planting and harvest to the degree that taking it to market isn’t even worth it, the easiest course is the landfill. Some produce goes bad in transport or in processing.

A Natural Resources Defense Council report estimated that as much as 30 percent of some farmers’ crops never make it to market. Another problem with this is that those crops were watered needlessly, and most are well aware of the water shortage in the western U.S.

The Land of Misfit Produce Has Been Found to Be Healthier

Some researchers believe fruits and vegetables that are misshapen, bearing nicks or what have you, may actually have higher antioxidant content. One orchard owner in Virginia suggested that stress may even help create super fruit.

She conducted an off-grid test to compare the nutritional value of both marred and unmarred Parma apples from her orchard, and reported that the ones with blemishes were sweeter by 2 percent to 5 percent — a bonus for her since the sweetest apples produce the tastiest cider.

It’s already well known that organic food is healthier. One reason is because of whatsn’t there — it isn’t loaded down with pesticide residues and other toxins. A 2012 study2 revealed that organic produce contains as much as 40 percent more antioxidants than conventionally grown varieties.

Among those antioxidants are innumerable elements such as carotenoids, flavonoids, phenolic acids and many other health-promoting nutrients. Those may or may not be present in spite of weather and pests, but because of them.

This truly may be a case where what doesn’t kill (organic fruits and vegetables) makes them stronger!

Interestingly, organic produce isn’t just safer to eat, it contains more of what we eat food for — to ingest the vitamins and minerals we need to maintain health; to literallymake food our medicine and medicine our food, as Hippocrates advised.

The ugli fruit gets a gold star in this regard. It has thick, yellow-green skin so loose, lumpy and leathery that anyone who didn’t know better might pass it by.

But studies show it contains 11 antioxidant, free-radical-scavenging and iron-reducing compounds and flavonoids, is anti-inflammatory, antiviral, anti-allergic, and significantly reduced smoke-induced carcinogens.

Its compounds may help protect against viral infections, allergies, and fungal conditions, and its peel contains coumarin, which may protect against tumorous cancers.3

Don’t Pitch It — Redirect It

Countless organizations are dedicated to feeding the hungry. Shelters, food banks and soup kitchens are there for this purpose. Some have devised innovative ways to convince restaurant and grocery store owners to funnel rejected produce, which very often is perfectly fine, to such places rather than to the landfill.

One program is the EPA’s Food Recovery Challenge,4 dedicated to reducing the amount of food wasted in the U.S. (possibly inspired by the European Union, which declared 2014 as the Year Against Food Waste5).

In fact, a Harvard-based conference titled, “Reduce & Recover: Save Food For People,”6 “prioritizes actions people can take to reduce and recover wasted food.”

Another project called Imperfect Produce7 was designed to offer not-so-perfect plant-based foods for a drastically discounted price, working with Whole Foods and other retailers.

The company delivers “wonky”-looking fruits and veggies from several Southern California locations to homes and offices. The goal is to expand to other areas across the U.S. Imperfect Produce was designed after a French endeavor called Inglorious produce, its goal to market “the grotesque apple, and the ridiculous potato.”

Unfortunately, as one farmer related, getting foods destined for the rubbish heap into the hands of someone who’ll eat it is not free:

“There’s got to be an economic incentive to move more of this into an avenue that food banks could take advantage of. It’s a lot easier and cheaper just to basically throw it away.”8

Farmers in seven states get tax credits for donating produce, but food banks have been lobbying for larger deductions.

It’s What’s on the Inside That Counts

Restaurants and grocery stores on the other end of the operation perpetrate a staggering amount of waste themselves, but a few, including Safeway and Giant Eagle, have jumped on board to find a home for cosmetically challenged, plant-based foods.

An example of how Raley’s western-based grocery chain tackled the dilemma of wasted food is fairly straightforward: They opted to start selling produce that doesn’t necessarily appear flawless, and at a 25 percent or greater discount.

The “Real Good” program — the first of its kind in the U.S. — focuses on fruits and vegetables described as “scarred (or) aesthetically challenged,” but with imperfections so insignificant consumers often can’t tell why it was ever considered a reject.

“The grocer said qualifying produce is uniquely shaped, sized or colored, but otherwise the same in flavor and quality as standard produce offerings. Among the “Real Good” offerings are plums, peppers and pears that will be offered at prices 25 percent to 30 percent lower than flawlessly shaped, uniformly colored produce.”9

Heirloom Fruits and Vegetables — Our Last, Best Hope

Many people who grow their “real food” do so for more reasons than the enjoyment of getting dirt under their fingernails. In many cases it’s because they know using seeds that are the “real thing” — not hybrids crossed from two or more varieties, but open-pollinated and sometimes saved from actual produce — may have advantages many have never considered.

Why would anybody go to the trouble of soaking, scraping, drying and carefully preserving the seeds from their garden produce, or tracking down heirloom seed varieties to grow in their gardens, when they can purchase all the seeds they want down the street for just a few dollars? Turns out there are many motivations:

  • Heirloom varieties aren’t laced with pesticides and other harmful chemicals, such as GMOs.
  • Heirloom foods taste better. Many people today have no idea what some foods are supposed to even taste like, because beauty has replaced flavor in the marketplace. But the originally created model of foods like delicious, meaty tomatoes and nutty, buttery squash exist only from seeds saved, protected, and sometimes handed down through several generations.
  • Heirloom vegetables and fruits often contain superior nutrition. While the bottom line is profit, and profit is maintained by offering more and more of the prettiest peaches, carrots and lettuce, growers have gotten into the habit of planting for a continual bumper crop of higher yields. But it turns out that the practice has backfired; the highest nutrients are often found to be significantly higher in those older varieties.10
  • Heirloom seeds are open-pollinated, meaning you can save and plant the seeds from year to year. They produce plants with offerings that are true to type, which is more often than not, not the case with hybrids.
  • Heirlooms produce less-uniform crops, so they ripen at different times. While large farming operations like everything to reach maturity at the same time so they can pick everything all at once, home gardeners get the advantage of harvesting produce as they need it.

Heirloom seeds are also less expensive — even free. It just stands to reason that if you save your seeds from year to year, you’ll pay literally nothing, other than your time. And the result will be just as mouth-wateringly delicious as last year.

Scientific ‘Improvement’ Not What the Doctor Ordered

Mother Earth News reported:

“A lot of the breeding programs for modern hybrids have sacrificed taste and nutrition,” says George DeVault, executive director of Seed Savers Exchange, the leading nonprofit organization dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom and other rare seeds. “The standard Florida tomato is a good example. Instead of old-time juicy tangy tomatoes, it tastes like cardboard.

It was bred to be picked green and gas-ripened because that’s what was needed for commercial growing and shipping.”11

A perfect example of what happens when something like an apple is scientifically targeted for genetic perfection is the Red Delicious apple. These delectable apples with unique coloring and crisp, juicy flavor were America’s favorite for nearly 75 years — until selective breeding rendered them not only unpopular but also virtually inedible.

What happened? Well, when a grower noticed a single branch on a Red Delicious tree produced red apples sooner than the rest, an all-out campaign began among orchard owners to “out-breed” their competitors. The hope was that grafting branches from the source tree might produce ever-more-beautiful apples. What they got instead was a mealy, tasteless mush no one wanted to eat, even though the outside looked gorgeous.

As the old saying goes, beauty is only skin deep. Other fruits and vegetables, unfortunately, have been similarly “messed with,” especially in this age of growers and grocers counting heavily on produce appearing as attractive when it’s unloaded as when it’s picked.

Saving Food in Order to Save People Starts with Caring

It’s not just to keep available food from being wasted. The ultimate goal should be to feed people who are hungry. According to Paul Ash from the California Association of Food Banks:

“Fifty million Americans don’t know where their next meal is coming from. We, meanwhile, are wasting this — all this food. If we cut our food waste even by a third, there would be enough food for all those people who don’t know where their next meal is coming from to be fully fed.”12

The question begs to be asked: With all the hunger in the world — much of it in our own communities–aren’t there more ways this obscene waste can be redirected to do some good?

Related Reading:



How To Grow Spirulina at Home

(Algae Industry Magazine –Dr. Aaron BaumThe popular image of algae farming is bubbling green columns and white-coated scientists and seems out of reach for ordinary people. Is the experience of algae farming limited to professionals? A growing network of DIY algae farmers is proving that we can all participate, by creating successful algae ponds and growth tanks in our own homes.

These are not mere science projects. Because of the high rate of algae growth and their potential nutrient density, it is possible to produce enough in a single window to significantly supplement an ordinary person’s experimentalist’s diet.

Helping these folks is the mission of our lab and website, Algaelab.org. Although there are many kinds of algae, and we’re committed to helping people grow any strain they’re interested in, we believe that Spirulina is the best species for DIYers to start with, for three main reasons:

Spirulina in microscope

Spirulina in microscope

1. The unique health value of live, fresh Spirulina, even at small doses.

Just a few grams of Spirulina powder a day have been shown to have definite health benefits. Spirulina is by far the most-studied nutritional algae, both in terms of its benefits and lack of harm. It has been shown to make a difference in preventing and treating ailments from obesity to malnutrition, cancer to heart disease.

These studies are on powdered Spirulina. Though it hasn’t been studied, it seems obvious that the live, fresh stuff—which is only available if you grow it yourself—would be even healthier. Personally, I find that eating a few grams of Spirulina with every meal makes the meal more satisfying, smoothes out sugar highs and lows, and gives me extended endurance and stamina.

2. Spirulina is safe and easy to grow.

As innocent as it may seem, Spirulina is in fact an extremophile, capable of growing in extremely alkaline water inhospitable to almost every other organism. Most other algae grow in essentially pH-neutral water, which supports the growth of a vast range of algae—including types that produce toxins—as well as doing nothing to inhibit the growth of other potentially harmful organisms such as bacteria. In my biofuel-algae work, we’re constantly fending off invasive species. It’s not just an academic concern. Since it is generally hard to control the growth of possibly harmful stuff (and although it’s fun, we think you should look at your culture under the microscope every day), this aspect of Spirulina cultivation is pretty key to growing pure and safe cultures on a DIY basis. One of the best aspects of growing your own Spirulina is knowing that the product that you are growing is as pure and free of contamination as possible.

3. Ease of harvest, and no need for further processing.

Harvesting Spirulina with a cloth filter

Harvesting Spirulina with a cloth filter

Even when an algal culture looks nice and thick, it’s probably still about 99.9% water. Separating the desired .1% from all that water can be a real trick. As a general rule, algal cells are tiny, roughly spherical, and devilishly difficult to pull out of the water without some special (read: expensive) tech. This is where the corkscrew shape of Spirulina cells comes in; when a culture is poured through nothing more complex than a fine cloth, it filters out easily, leaving a thick paste, which can be consumed immediately. Contrast that with the need for cell rupturing, drying, and product extraction in typical algal production systems, and it’s easy to see why Spirulina is a good place to start.

So if you or someone you know wants to get involved, what is necessary? Nothing more than a sunny window, some sort of transparent container, and a kit of supplies. If you want to assemble your own kit, we can set you up with spirulina starter, growing tips, and any other equipment you might want.


“...eating a few grams of Spirulina with every meal makes the meal more satisfying, smoothes out sugar highs and lows, and gives me extended endurance and stamina.”

Some FAQs about growing algae at home:

How long does it take to grow from the kit with the 1 liter starter bottle, until I can start harvesting from my tank?

Grow-up proceeds in stages—see the instructions; you put half the contents of the bottle into one quarter of the tank (2.5 gallons for a 10-gallon tank) to start with, which results in a very thin culture at first, which will thicken over time. After a couple of weeks, the algae should be thick enough that you can double the culture volume, then after a week or so, double again, so that the tank is full. Once the tank is full, the algae are thick (3cm Secchi or less, see below), and the pH has been at least 10 for 24 hours, you should be able to harvest. This process can take from 3 to 6 weeks.

AlgaeLab DIY Spirulina Growth Kit

AlgaeLab DIY Spirulina Growth Kit

Can I harvest multiple times?

Once you have a thriving culture (which typically takes a few weeks), you can harvest from it regularly (how often depends mostly on how much light the algae get, the more the better); each time you harvest, you add a little Make-Up Mix to the culture to make up for the nutrients that are taken out in the harvested algae.

What kind of water should I use to make the growth medium?

We use tap water, filtered through activated carbon (such as a Brita) or through a ceramic filter (such as a Berkey). Algae are quite sensitive to chlorine (which is why it’s used in the first place!), so tap water is only usable if the chlorine has been removed—which can be done using products sold for fish aquariums. The afore-mentioned filters, and de-chlorination, leave minerals in the water, which is generally a good thing; if you want to use de-mineralized water such as distilled or reverse osmosis water, or if your water is particularly soft, you may get better growth if you add some combination of 0.1 g/L magnesium sulfate, 0.5 g/L potassium sulfate, and/or 0.1 g/L calcium chloride (or lime or plaster). That said, we have yet to hear of anyone having trouble growing in non- or de-chlorinated drinking water of any kind.

How much Spirulina will I be able to harvest from my tank, how often, and for how long?

If you follow the instructions and thus provide proper temperature, pH, and nutrients, yield will depend mostly on the hours of bright light the tank receives. This generally means sunlight. (See below for a discussion of artificial lighting.) 
In a south-facing window with plenty of direct sun exposure, you can get roughly a tablespoon of live Spirulina harvest from a typical 10-gallon tank every other day. Two or three such tanks (or bigger) can fit in a window for daily harvest.

For how long? If the proper amount of make-up mix is added back to the tank after every harvest, the nutrient balance can be maintained for a high level of growth for about four to six months, at which point the pH will have risen too high (11+) for good growth. At this point you simply mix up a new batch of medium, harvest all your Spirulina, and immediately put them in the new medium.  After a couple of weeks your culture should be full, dense, and ready for harvest again, ready to start the 4-6 month cycle. So, you need enough starter mix to renew your culture every 4-6 months, though it’s a good idea to keep some on hand in case anything else might go wrong with your medium (though this is unusual). There is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to keep going this way indefinitely. The formulae for the starter and make-up mix are in the instructions if you want to make your own.

How do I use the Make-Up Mix?

As described above, the make-up mix is used only at harvest time (or when removing dead algae). Add an amount of make-up mix proportional to the harvested algae—one teaspoon of the mix per tablespoon of harvested algae, plus a dash of iron juice. This makes up for the nutrients lost in the harvested algae, thus the name.

How do I keep my Spirulina alive when I go on vacation?  Can they be “parked” for a while?

The trick is to slow down their metabolism by lowering the tank temperature. This can be done simply by turning off the heater. The tank should also be kept from strong direct light during this time as well, although it does need some light. If kept in this way, it should be fine for several weeks or more. When bringing it back from this state, raise the temperature and light in stages, over a few days, and the algae will be fine.

Can I use artificial lights to grow my algae?

Some algae-nauts have had good results from using artificial illumination, but it’s worth remembering that direct sunshine is about 100x brighter (~100,000 lux) than the light in what would be considered a very well artifically-lit room (1000 lux). It’s hard to compete with the sun. If using artificial lighting, it’s smart to take advantage of the heat generated by the light fixture as well. See below for a discussion of the optimal color for an artificial light source.
Do I need to tell you to be very careful about combining water and electricity? Watch for dripping water going along power cords – keep plugs high so you won’t get shocked!

What are the health benefits of eating Spirulina?

Too many to mention here; take a look around the Web for a more complete picture. In a nutshell, because it lacks a cell wall or any other indigestible components, Spirulina is a super-concentrated, highly available nutrient source, which enhances the nutrition of any food eaten with it. Spirulina is about 65% complete protein, and the remainder is packed with anti-oxidants, essential omega-3 fatty acids, and other compounds with healthful anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, and anti-cancer properties. As a blue-green algae, its nutritional value is unique, since blue-green algae split evolutionarily from green plants approximately a billion years ago.

My experience with Spirulina (I eat about 15 grams a day) is that it greatly improves my stamina, raises and levels out my mood, and speeds up all kinds of healing. The first two effects are consistent with clinical studies that show a large reduction (up to 50%)in the glycemic index of foods eaten with even a small amount (2.5%) of Spirulina.

Is live Spirulina better for you than the powder or pills I can get at the health food store?

All studies of the health benefits of Spirulina have been on the dead, powdered stuff. I believe that the live, fresh version of such a highly perishable food would have superior properties, and this is my experience, having eaten both. Purveyors of the powder claim that they take every precaution to preserve the nutritional properties of the algae, but what would you rather eat, a fresh blueberry, or a powdered blueberry?

How long does the live, fresh Spirulina last? How can I preserve it?

Fresh Spirulina, once removed from the preserving alkaline environment of the tank, is like raw eggs in its perishability—it should be eaten or refrigerated within an hour or so of harvest. It will last in the fridge for up to three days. If frozen, it lasts indefinitely; if dehydrated (and kept dry), it will last for about a year, longer if kept in an airtight container. It’s not hard to tell if it does go bad—it smells like rotten eggs.

Is there an optimal artificial light to use for growing Spirulina?

As a general rule, a plant or alga (or anything else for that matter) absorbs the wavelengths (colors) that are not present in its apparent color, which is made up of the wavelengths that it bounces out without absorbing. So, the chlorophyll of green plants absorbs mainly red and blue light, and bounces out green light. Green plants need both red and blue light to thrive. Blue-green algae, such as spirulina, have special accessory pigments called phycocyanins and allophycocyanins, which allow them to capture more red and orange light (and to a lesser extent yellow and green) than green plants. They do have chlorophyll (only slightly different from green plants’ chlorophyll), so they also use blue light.

For these reasons, ordinary “grow lights”, which are optimized for green land plants, are not particularly good for growing Spirulina or other blue-green algae (though they will work). A light with more red and orange light—i.e. a “warmer” color—would be more efficient for growth, as a higher fraction of the light will be absorbed. Another approach would be to use white light supplemented by a red-orange light source (peaking at 620-650 nm), to hit the phyco-pigments better. I have used the “warmer” colored compact fluorescents with some success, but haven’t done any side-by-side testing. In general, though, the color of the light source is not as important in my experience as getting the nutrients and temperature right, and providing LOTS of light, which is a lot easier using sunshine!

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H.R. 1599, the “DARK” Act, Sets Out to Put the Final Nail in the Organic Industry’s Coffin

(The Free Though Project.com) Washington, D.C. – Congress is considering a bill that would make it illegal for states to require GMO labeling. It would negate the ability of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to create a national GMO labeling standard and specifically allow for the labeling of products as “natural,” even when containing GMOs.

But perhaps the most disturbing part of the bill is the fact that it would make it illegal for counties and states to place any restrictions on the planting of GMO crops.

The ominous bill, H.R. 1599, ironically called the Safe Food and Accurate Food Labeling Act (commonly referred to as the DARK Act – the Deny Americans the Right to Know Act), was recently passed by subcommittee and now moves on to a full vote on the House floor.

The ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), has expressed confidence that the bill will pass in the House. Supporters, such as Peterson, emphatically tout the safety of GMO products, claiming that no scientific experts have proven any legitimate safety concerns; a widely disputed position.

“Consumers increasingly want to know more about where their food comes from and how it is produced. I think H.R. 1599 satisfies that demand while also recognizing what we know about the safety of the foods that our farmers produce. The bill is a workable solution that will alleviate the potential mess of 50 states with 50 different labeling schemes,” Peterson said.

A huge portion of America’s food contain GMOs, with estimates that as much as 80 percent of packaged foods in grocery stores contains GMO ingredients, according to the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which opposes GMO labeling.

A number of politicians and groups, such as the Center for Food Safety and the Environmental Working Group (EWG), have strongly come out against the bill.

“Americans have the right to know what’s in food and how it was grown — the same as citizens of 64 other nations that require GMO labeling,” said Scott Faber, EWG’s vice president of government affairs. “It’s time for lawmakers to recognize that right and stand for GMO labeling.”

There is currently no companion legislation in the Senate, but if the bill passes the House similar legislation is expected to be introduced.

Currently, the states of California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington have restrictions in place on the placement of planting of GMO crops. Vermont, Maine, and Connecticut have passed laws requiring GMO labeling.

The planting restrictions are in place to control for the risk of organic farms being contaminated by GMOs, as drift and pollen carried via bee can spread to the organic farms.

Regardless of what you think about the health and safety of GMOs, it is not disputed that Monsanto uses them to predatorily attack farmers. Monsanto has a team of “inspectors” who roam the country looking for their seeds in unauthorized locations.

Farmers don’t even know that this Monsanto GMO is growing in their fields, as it has blown in from a nearby farm, or from a passing truck. However, Monsanto will then sue them for infringing on their patented seed because it is growing in their fields.

This contamination is so widely spread that it is estimated that most organic corn in the U.S. typically contains anywhere from half a percent to 2 percent GMOs, according to companies that sell such corn to organic dairies or poultry farmers.

For organic farmers, the prospect of losing their organic certification has dark implications. Not only would it inevitably drive them out of business due to not being able to sell their products as organic, but this could systematically drive organic farming as whole to the brink of extinction.

Each local jurisdiction has specific sets of issues which need to be addressed when contemplating GMOs. Crafting blanket laws to protect big business interests is contrary to the idea of allowing people to decide what they feel is in their own best interest.

Whether in favor of labeling or not, politicians have shown a blatant disregard for the people whom they claim to represent by attempting to usurp their ability to make these important choices on a state and local level.

The DARK Act is a dangerous piece of legislation, which serves as a blatant example of how the collusion of power and money, in the form of a major lobby and their political cronies, can serve to take away liberty from the American people.

How can anyone claim that not allowing people the ability to know what is in their food, if they choose to know, is somehow a good thing? Outlawing the people of states and counties from deciding what is right for them reeks of oppressive tyranny.

Recommended Reading:

Jay Syrmopoulos is an investigative journalist, free thinker, researcher, and ardent opponent of authoritarianism. He is currently a graduate student at University of Denver pursuing a masters in Global Affairs. Jay’s work has been published on BenSwann’s Truth in Media, Chris Hedges’ truth-out, AlterNet and many other sites. You can follow him on Twitter @sirmetropolis, on Facebook at Sir Metropolis and now on tsu.




Chipotle goes 100% non-GMO; flatly rejecting the biotech industry and its toxic food ingredients

(NaturalNews) The free market victories against the sleazy biotech industry are coming at a rapid pace now, and the latest announcement is a real game changer: Chipotle Mexican Grill has outright rejected all GMOs and, as of today, is now serving all non-GMO ingredients in its foods.

“When it comes to our food, genetically modified ingredients don’t make the cut,” says an official announcement on the Chipotle website. “…[T]he food we serve should be made with ingredients raised with care for animals, farmers, and the environment. We’re doubtful that the GMO ingredients that used to be in our food meet these criteria.”

The fighting words from Steve Ells very closely mirror the clean food mantra that Natural News has been advocating for years. He says, quoted in the New York Times:

This is another step toward the visions we have of changing the way people think about and eat fast food… Just because food is served fast doesn’t mean it has to be made with cheap raw ingredients, highly processed with preservatives and fillers and stabilizers and artificial colors and flavors.

Well said, Steve. You get it. Your customers get it. Your shareholders might even get it, too: people want clean food, transparent supply lines, ethical treatment of animals and no GMOs!

“While some studies have shown GMOs to be safe, most of this research was funded by companies that sell GMO seeds and did not evaluate long-term effects,” says the Chipotle website. “Evidence suggests that GMOs engineered to produce pesticides or withstand powerful chemical herbicides damage beneficial insect populations and create herbicide resistant super-weeds.”

For the first time, Natural News publicly endorses the leadership of a fast food restaurant chain

With this announcement, Chipotle makes history. It is the first fast food chain in the world to outright reject GMOs in a very public manner, making its stance a feature of its food offerings.

For this reason, Natural News is now publicly endorsing the leadership and clean food vision of the Chipotle restaurant chain, honoring the courage and pioneering spirit of this chain in staking out new territory in the clean food movement.

I don’t normally eat at fast food chains, but I’m now going to make it a point to visit a Chipotle soon and check out what they have to offer. If you happen to see me chowing down at a Chipotle restaurant in Austin, Texas, don’t be surprised… (and yeah, it’s totally cool to say hi!)

Why switching to 100% non-GMO is a remarkable achievement

In order to help you appreciate the difficulty of going 100% non-GMO, allow me to share some of what’s involved in this. I’m qualified to share this because I’m intimately involved in the product sourcing, certification and laboratory testing of raw materials for products sold via the Natural News Store. We are certified organic and GMP-compliant (FDA rules). I’m also the lab science director of the Natural News Forensic Food Lab, which is in the process of achieving ISO 17025 accreditation.

Sourcing non-GMO ingredients requires a tremendous supply line effort involving non-GMO certification and documentation, complex raw materials acquisition logistics, and laboratory testing of raw materials to ensure they are indeed free of genetically engineered ingredients. None of this is easy to accomplish, and it all requires a concerted effort (and additional cost).

“Ridding the supply chain of genetically altered components is difficult,” reports the New York Times. “They lurk in baking powder, cornstarch and a variety of ingredients used as preservatives, coloring agents and added vitamins, as well as in commodities like canola and soy oils, corn meal and sugar.”

It’s surprising to even see this printed in the New York Times, but it’s also very welcomed. Indeed, the NYT is correct on this point: GMOs are “lurking” even in many popular vitamins, protein powders and some superfoods! Almost anything made from corn — maltodextrin, corn starch, corn syrup and even ascorbic acid — is largely derived from genetically engineered corn.

That’s why sourcing foods made without GMOs is no walk in the park. It adds complexity and cost to the sourcing of those foods, and at times it can cause supply line shortages. On the flip side, however, it also creates enormous profit opportunities for farmers who wish to grow non-GMO foods. The demand for non-GMO crops is now at an all-time high in America, and more and more farmers and learning that they can earn far more revenue by ditching biotech seeds and growing organic or non-GMO crops instead.

As Chipotle rises, McDonald’s falls

The timing of this announcement by Chipotle is notable, as it coincides with McDonald’s declaring another miserable quarter of falling revenues and plummeting market share. McDonald’s is in desperation mode, scrambling to try to figure out why fewer and fewer people want to eat its factory-processed, genetically modified, artificially-flavored “fake foods.” (Is that a Chicken McNugget, or a tiny scrubbing sponge for my toilet?)

The idea that consumers might be informed enough to make holistic choices about food ingredients, food supply lines, the ethical treatment of animals and even the ecological costs of certain ingredients (such as palm oil) seems to absolutely baffle McDonald’s executives. They appear to be stuck in the 1950’s, believing that food marketing is all about social engineering — children’s playgrounds and emotional marketing slogans — rather than the food itself.

What McDonald’s has yet to realize is that food awareness is skyrocketing everywhere, in large thanks to the very same independent media outlets that McDonald’s can’t control (like Natural News). With independent organizations like Natural News now owning and operating its own high-level food forensics laboratories, the scrutiny of food can no longer be controlled by corporations doing things like pressuring universities or the FDA to remain silent about food toxins and contaminants.

In other words, the age of independent laboratory scrutiny of foods is now upon us… and food transparency will be forced into the open, even as fast food corporations like McDonald’s would likely prefer to keep their food composition a secret. Imagine what will happen when independent labs across the alternative media universe upgrade their laboratories to test for pesticides, hormones or even glyphosate contamination! At that point, factory food companies like McDonald’s will have their full chemical composition publicly revealed for the entire world to see. And it won’t take long for consumers to see why restaurants like Chipotle are a far healthier choice.

Watch the sleazebags of biotech now attack Chipotle

Now that Chipotle has taken a courageous and game-changing stance against GMOs, we’re all going to get to enjoy the entertainment of watching the “biotech sleazebag brigade” roll out its contrived attacks on Chipotle and anyone who endorses them.

These attacks will of course be staged by the so-called “Monsanto Discredit Bureau” which has now been utterly exposed and revealed to be a group of quackpot criminals and fraudsters, such as the felony criminal doctor running the American Council on Science and Health, an astroturfing corporate front group that was behind the recent attempt to smear Doctor Oz.

Biotech smear operatives work for publications like Vox.com, Slate and the Washington Post, where defamation and character assassination attacks are routinely waged against humanity and all those who defend humanity against the mass poisoning by pesticide corporations (and GMO companies). Increasingly, no one believes the biotech smear campaigns anymore. That’s why the science editors of the Washington Post and other mainstream media outlets are increasingly seen as being propaganda mouthpieces for Monsanto and Big Pharma rather than real journalists. “Journalism,” as they say, is printing what the corporations and governments don’t want printed. Everything else is just public relations.

What almost everyone is coming to realize is that nearly every single person defending the biotech industry is a paid corporate shill. Take a look at former Forbes.com writer Jon Entine, for example, who Natural News exhaustively exposed as being a violent wife abuser, according to these court documents. He was a key author for the ACSH, writing a booklet that ridiculously tried to claim atrazine was environmentally safe.

People who try to defend glyphosate, GMOs, atrazine, pesticides and mercury in vaccines only discredit themselves. The public is waking up, and they aren’t stupid. They know that GMOs are toxic, glyphosate is destructive to the environment, mercury in vaccines causes harm to children and, above all, corporations and the mainstream media are lying to them.

ACTION ITEM: Visit Chipotle this week and tell them why!

To celebrate this mass awakening, I’m now suggesting that everybody rush out to Chipotle this week and enjoy a non-GMO meal there. While you’re there, ask to speak to the manager of the restaurant and tell them you are a customer because of their rejection of GMOs.

Let ’em know as long as they take a leadership position in clean food, you will continue to reward them with your business. Vote with your dollars. Punish the poison-pushing corporations like McDonald’s, Kellogg’s and General Mills by simply denying them your business. Reward honorable, ethical companies like Chipotle, Nature’s Path and One Degree Organic Foods by purchasing their products.

You hold the power in your hands to change the food industry one purchase at a time. In fact, your power is enormous and lasting. Exercise it NOW… and you WIN!

Editor’s note:

If you’re going to eat at Chipotle, pop a few anti-Candida supplements like SF722 or a good probiotic (see Kill Candida). With almost every single restaurant, even their healthiest choices still feed Candida even in a healthy person. Also check out Understanding and Detoxifying Genetically Modified Foods.

Further Reading: