Natural Cures Not Medicine: gardening

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Showing posts with label gardening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gardening. Show all posts

Florida couple sues city after being forced to remove family vegetable garden


The village of Miami Shores in Miami, Florida, brands itself as a progressive neighborhood that promotes "green living." But local residents Hermine Ricketts and Tom Carroll have found that this is not exactly an honest designation, as village officials recently ordered them to uproot a family vegetable garden that they have been cultivating peacefully for some 17 years in their front yard, or else face daily fines of $50 per citation.


The couple was ordered to remove their garden back on May 8, 2013, just one day after a controversial zoning revision was passed that suddenly prohibited the planting of vegetables in residents' front yards. However, the same ordinance oddly allows for the front yard planting of fruit trees, fruit plants and other so-called "kitsch" items like pink flamingos and garden gnomes, which some might argue are more obtrusive.

The couple has long grown vegetables in their front yard, because their backyard gets minimal sunlight, which makes it difficult to cultivate the types and amount of food they need to live. And their front yard garden has never been a nuisance, having always been cared for and manicured with love, and with no issues from any of the neighbors.

But Miami Shores officials wanted it gone, threatening the couple with daily fines if they did not uproot it. They repeatedly petitioned the city with formal requests to keep the garden, but the code enforcement board denied these requests. The couple eventually agreed to uproot the garden but are now suing the city for what they say is a blatant violation of their right to privacy.

"The right to grow and harvest your own food on your very own property is certainly part of that right to acquire, possess, and protect property," says Ari Bargil, the couple's attorney. Bargil works for the non-profit public interest firm Institute for Justice (IFJ), which took on the case. "A ban on front yard
 vegetable gardens makes no sense. A property and a front yard doesn't become unsightly ... simply because you're growing vegetables."


Ban on front yard vegetables is unconstitutional, says IFJ lawyer

Bargil says that the ban clearly violates Florida's "Basic Rights Clause," which upholds the right of Florida residents to use their properties for any peaceful and productive use that does not harm others. A basic vegetable garden, he says, in no way violates these provisions, and the village will have a tough time defending its position in court.

"Miami Shores will have to prove that its ban promotes a compelling governmental interest and is narrowly tailored to advance that interest," reads an official IFJ press release about the case. "We're not suing for money. We're asking the court to rule that this law is unconstitutional so Hermine and Tom can plant their garden again."

In the meantime, Hermine is continuing to tend to a few herbs and a papaya tree that remain in her front yard, as she hopes for the day that she will once again be able to plant all the food that she had before. Buying everything clean and organic from the grocery store, she says, can be expensive, and growing her own vegetables on her own private property is simply a basic human right.

"We are already feeling the impact of shopping for overpriced organic food," she told the
 Miami Herald. "It's okay to have a cheap plastic thing shipped in from abroad," she added, referring to a symbolic, plastic pink flamingo she now has planted at the front of her yard, "but it is illegal to plant organic vegetables in your front yard."

Source: NaturalNews

How to grow the miracle herb turmeric at home

Some of the health benefits of turmeric include:

Image: www.gather.com
-Helps prevent gas
-Helps prevent cancer
-Natural Antibiotic
-Aids in weight management
-Natural antiseptic
-Reduces the side effects of chemo
-Natural analgesic

Se more health benefits of turmeric that we have posted about here.

Here is a good video that shows you how to easily plant this miracle herb so you can have it around all the time. Growing you own is the best way to ensure that your food (or medicine) is organic, fresh and packed with the most nutritional value.

How to build an underground greenhouse that you can grow in all year

DIY Underground Greenhouse - #OccupyTesla

Image: www.treehugger.com
In Ground Greenhouses have many benefits; the surrounding Earth provides excellent insulation, it's not an eyesore on the surface and most of all protecting plants from frost. Links to learning below.

The underground greenhouse method allows for natural insulation, while optimizing solar absorbance. These partially subterranean greenhouses appear to be the best for growing winter horticultural crops, and have been adopted in numerous countries, such as Japan, Russia, Korea, and now even the United States. These underground greenhouses can be something built very small for an individual or family, or it can be much larger to accommodate for more commercial needs. But it has proven to be more beneficial for growers than conventional methods which are at the mercy of varying weather conditions. Cheaper than aquaponics, but more effort than urban homesteading, an underground greenhouse is almost universally viable, more than affordable, and ecologically smart.
http://www.exposingthetruth.co/underground-greenhouse/

Underground greenhouse diagram via #OccupyTesla

Oehlers method utilizes a coldsink to help keep warmer while Greigers plan utilizes insulation between bags and earth. All 3 plans utilize a form of thermal mass to retain warmth.
http://naturalbuildingblog.com/earthbag-pit-greenhouse-plans/

Here is a video of a tour of the Walipini underground greenhouse:


Directory pertaining to the Wallipini underground greenhouse method.
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Walipini_Underground_Greenhouses

Mike Oehler book to purchase
http://www.amazon.com/Earth-Sheltered-Solar-Greenhouse-Book/dp/0960446400/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357419115&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=earth+integrated+greenhouse

"Earth Sheltered Solar Greenhouse" - pit construction
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hV8Teiskfo


15 Foods That Can Be Regrown From Scraps


Image: mrshappyhomemaker.com
Regrowing your food from scraps can give you multiple benefits. You can start growing your own food that
you find that you like from the store, all the while avoiding the 'factory farming' problems that we get from the grocery store. No pesticides, no long trips on the truck from the farming areas, many times from other countries, for your food. This is cool way to find food that you like and start regrowing it at home while eating healthier and saving money. You can also use this technique to replant from your garden to save time and clone the most favorable plants.

We found this great list below of 15 foods can can be regrown from scraps on mrshappyhomemaker.com

Let’s count them out – from 1 to 15…

1, 2, 3, & 4.  Spring Onions, Leeks, Scallions, & Fennel

These are the ones I regrow the very most, I always have a mason jar of green onions regrowing above my kitchen sink. The technique is quite simple.  Once you are done with them (any of the above four), simply place the root end in a jar of water & it will begin to regrow within just a few days.  Just make sure to replace the water with fresh as need be.
15 Foods That Can Be Regrown from Scraps

5. Lemongrass

You can regrow lemongrass the same way you regrow the green onions.  Simply place the root ends in a glass of water, refreshing the water as needed. You will want to wait to harvest your lemongrass until it is about 12 inches tall.

6.  Ginger

Plant a small chunk off of your piece of ginger in potting soil with the newest buds facing up. Ginger enjoys non-direct sunlight in a warm moist environment. Before long, it will begin to regrow shoots and roots. Once the plant is established and you’re ready to harvest, pull up the whole plant, including the roots. Remove a piece of the ginger, and re-plant it to repeat the growing process.

Here is a good video on replanting ginger:


7. Potatoes 

Pick a potato that has a lot of good formed eyes, and cut it into 2-3 inch pieces, taking care to be sure that each piece has at least 1-2 eyes on it. Leave the cut pieces to sit at room temperature for a day or two, which allows the cut areas to dry. Potato plants thrive on a high-nutrient environment, so it is best to flip compost into your soil before you plant. Plant your potato pieces about 8 inches deep with the eye facing up. Cover it with 4 inches of soil, leaving the other 4 inches empty. As your plant begins to grow and more roots appear, add more soil.

8. Sweet Potatoes

You will need sweet potatoes with good formed eyes, just as you would want with a regular potato. You can bury the entire potato or use pieces under a thin layer of topsoil in a moist place with plenty of sun. When the shoots begin to reach a height of four inches you will need to replant the sweet potatoes, allowing them about 12 inches between each another. It takes about 4-6 months to grow sweet potatoes this way.

9, 10, 11, & 12.  Romaine Lettuce, Celery, Bok Choy, & Cabbage

These all are regrown by placing the roots in a dish of water. Cut the leaves or stalks off to about an inch above the roots.  Place the root end in a dish of water.  Make sure that the roots are inside of the water, but do not submerge the rest of the plant.  Place in a sunny window & spray with water 1-2 times a week to keep the top of the plant moist.

13.  Onions

Onions are one of the easiest vegetables to regrow from scraps. Just cut off the root end of your onion, leaving a 1’2  inch of onion on the roots. Place it in a sunny location in your garden and cover the top with soil. Make sure to keep the soil moist by watering when needed. As you use your home-grown regenerated onions, keep replanting the root ends you cut off, and you’ll never have to purchase onions at the store again.

14.  Garlic

You can re-grow a plant from a single clove.  Simply plant it with the root-end down. Sit the plant in a sunny window.  Once established, cut back the shoots and the plant will put all it’s forces into producing a nice garlic bulb – full of flavor & capable of repelling sparkly vampires.  You can repeat this process with a clove from the new bulb you have just grown.

15. Pineapple

To re-grow pineapples, you will need to remove the green leafy part at the top and take care that no fruit remains attached. Either hold the crown firmly by the leaves and twist the stalk out, or you can cut the top off the pineapple and remove the remaining fruit flesh with a knife. If you do not remove all the fruit parts, it will rot after planting and will likely kill your plant. Carefully slice small, horizontal sections from the bottom of the crown until you see root buds (the small circles on the flat base of the stalk). Remove the bottom few layers of leaves leaving about an inch worth of them at the bottom of the stalk.  Plant your pineapple crown in a warm and well drained environment. Water your plant regularly at first. Once the plant is established, you can cut down to about once a week. You will see growth in the first few months but it will take about 2-3 years before you are able to harvest.

Source: mrshappyhomemaker.com

How to grow your garden through the winter


It-Yourself projects. Watch Lydia Sisson from Mill City Grows show you step-by-step how to make your own inexpensive greenhouse to keep that garden thriving year round.

Video by Howl Digital Media Editor Tory Germann.



Image: inhabitat.com

How to Make Gutter Gardens for Under $40

Image: www.servicecentral.com.au
Check out this cool and creative way top make the most out of any space you have. Set up an herb garden or an organic veggie grow in these low cost vertical gutter gardens, all for under $40. You can even put something like this on your apartment balcony or go indoors with it. DIY video below:

Check out another cool use of pallets to make a vertical garden that we have posted about: No space for a garden? No problem. Grow vertical with an inexpensive pallet garden

Here are some other creative ways to start taking control of your food supply and ensure you're not ingesting GMOs or poisonous pesticides: This is how you can be sure that your food is non-GMO






This is how GMO foods will be eliminated

Natural Cures Not Medicine on Facebook: www.facebook.com/naturalcuresnotmedicine

By Dr. Mercola
We’re in really exciting times with regards to shifting the tide against genetically engineered (GE) foods and genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Join the March Against Monsanto on 10/12/13: http://bit.ly/14RN9EV



As you know, I was a big supporter of the California GMO labeling campaign, and while we lost the vote by an incredibly narrow margin last November, Proposition 37 catalyzed an enormous amount of awareness across the US.

More people are now aware of GMOs than we could possibly have ever reached through educational efforts alone, investing the same amount of money that we invested in Prop. 37. It really marked the beginning of the end for GM foods in the US.

Jeffrey Smith, who is one of the leaders in educating people about the concerns and dangers of GMOs, has been at it for about 17 years. He believes we are now at the most critical stage in the history of GMO activism in the United States.
Image: http://www.hangthebankers.com

“We’ve now hit new stages of what I call the tipping point of consumer rejection,” he says. “And it follows very logically from Prop 37. Let me explain what I mean by a tipping point, and then I’ll explain exactly where we are in that process.

In January 1999, the biotech industry boldly predicted that within five years 95 percent of all commercial seeds in the world would be genetically modified and patented.

They did not anticipate the gag order of a scientist being lifted three weeks later in Europe. A firestorm of media reported on his results of a GMO-feeding study. Over 700 articles were written within a single month in the UK.

In 10 weeks, the tipping point of consumer rejection was achieved in Europe – heralded not by the European Commission banning GMOs, but by Unilever banning GMOs, then Nestlé, and then virtually everyone in Europe because they realized that using GM ingredients had become a marketing liability. This is what we call a tipping point.”

US Now Reaching the Tipping Point

In the US, we saw a tipping point against Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH) when it got kicked out of Walmart, Starbucks, Yoplait, and Dannon.

This was not due to any action taken by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but occurred when mothers across the nation became aware of the cancer risks associated with milk from cows treated with bovine growth hormone.

Now, the tipping point of consumer rejection of genetically engineered foods in the US is almost here.
A clear sign of this occurred last year, when the president of Whole Foods confessed that when a product becomes verified as Non-GMO or GMO-free, sales leap by 15-30 percent. Of all the categories of health and wellness claims, such as “gluten-free,” etc, “GMO-free” products have the most rapid growth in sales.
“This shows an enormous desire and demand for non-GMO products,” Smith says. “There are now 10,000 products in our NonGMOShoppingGuide.com database that are verified as non-GMO, and that’s expanding every day.”

“It’s actually happening in a big way. The next stage of the tipping point was heralded by a New York Times article on the 27th of May. If you were to read it from the perspective of a food product manager, you would realize the absolute need to make a decision.

I call it the stage of ‘awake and scramble,’ where they wake to the fact that the GMO movement is in place. It’s not going away. And if they want to participate, they got to scramble for non-GMO ingredients now
because they may not be able to get it later.”

Signs of the Times

The article touched on a number of vital signs of progress in the movement against genetically engineered foods, including:

The March Against Monsanto in 52 countries by more than two million people

Labeling laws proposed in more than two dozen states, which subsequently passed in Connecticut and Maine. Washington State will probably pass a GMO labeling bill as well this fall

Hundreds of companies have enrolled in the Non-GMO Project, and some non-GMO companies fret they may lose their sources of non-GMO ingredients to the new-comers

Farmers now receive more non-GMO premiums

Some companies are already going overseas to get non-GMO ingredients

Besides that, Target has announced that its own brand will be non-GMO in 2014. Ben & Jerry’s will be non-GMO by the end of this year, and while Chipotle’s restaurants are working toward a non-GMO menu, they voluntarily started labeling in the meantime. There’s also been more news coverage on the dangers of GMOs.

According to Smith:“The next stage of the tipping point is coming up very soon. It is called the battle for market share.”

The Battle for Market Share—Ready, Set…

The battle for market share begins the moment a mainstream food company that is not just sold in Whole Foods or a natural food chain puts a “Non-GMO Project Verified” sticker on its package and places it on the shelf next to a popular GMO-containing counterpart.

“This could happen at any time. It’s expected as early as August. Once it happens, the stopwatch starts ticking,” Smith says. “If we can move the sales in the direction of the Non-GMO Project Verified product and the other one starts reducing market share, it becomes the sell signal for the entire industry. If there’s a delay, if there’s no change in there, then the tipping point may stall and companies may use that as an excuse to say, ‘Well, maybe this will go away or be firewalled into the natural food space.’

The Institute for Responsible Technology began a massive campaign this summer to drive the non-health conscious shopper – the Walmart and Safeway shopper – into the non-GMO product category by focusing on the following four categories:

1. Mothers. Moms may sometimes not switch their own diet for themselves but they’re dedicated when it comes to protecting their children, and there’s ample evidence showing that children are most at-risk from GE foods. An impressive 1.7 million people watched Jeffrey Smith’s film Genetic Roulette during free-showing weeks in 2012, and many of them were parents, who immediately acted on the information and saw the results for themselves.

Says Smith: “I was speaking at MIT recently and someone from the audience said, ‘We saw the film. Before that, my six-and-a-half-year old was violent and out of control. They wanted to take him out of school and actually label him retarded. After changing his diet, a month later, I had a new child. All of those problems went away.’ We’re getting that information out to the moms.”

2. The sick, and their doctors. Mounting research has linked GE foods to a number of diseases and disorders. Studies are also implicating two of the main toxins related to GE foods, Roundup and Bt toxin, to all sorts of diseases.

“I go around the country and ask audiences, ‘How many of you have significantly removed GMOs from your diet?’ And then I say, ‘Okay, tell us all what improvements you’ve noticed.’ We hear: allergies; headaches; fatigue; gastrointestinal disorders; kidney and liver problems; diabetes; high blood pressure; skin problems; aggression; depression; infertility.

Someone said, ‘My client couldn’t get pregnant for five years, switched to a non-GMO diet, and was pregnant three weeks later.’ Another woman said, ‘My four-year-old started talking.’ We hear from parents of autistic kids –even from an autistic person directly – who told me when they switched to a non-GMO diet, the symptoms alleviated. An autistic man in his 60s came up to me and said, ‘I would never be able to come to this meeting with you had I not changed my diet, because these symptoms were preventing me from this type of social interaction…’ A lot of people also lose weight when they get rid of GMOs. It’s another main feature that we have to highlight, which we haven’t done a good job at.”

3. Religious groups. The Institute is also talking to people of various religious faiths, whose scriptures tell them to respect the natural way of things.

“They realize when they look inside this technology of mixing and matching across kingdoms and species and forcing DNA into new species that have never been there before, that it is against their faith. And then when they see the evidence showing that it’s actually causing health problems, it confirms what they believe. Many of them are getting onboard to direct their congregations to avoid GMOs.”

4. Pet owners. Many pet owners will tell you, their animals are just as much part of the family as any child is. And, as with children, animals are also among the most at-risk.

“We are finding – based on the experiences of veterinarians and pet-owners – that animals that eat the byproducts of the human food supply are suffering from the same diseases and disorders that humans are suffering from. We have veterinarians saying that animals and livestock – pets and horses – are all suffering from eating GMOs and improve when they get rid of GMOs,” Smith says.

Vote Non-GMO with Every Purchase

The feedback Smith describes offers strong testimony to the fact that even though it may have looked like we lost the battle when Prop. 37 failed to pass, we really won the war because it triggered this process of rapidly mounting awareness. And with awareness, people are quickly shifting their purchasing habits.

The rapid and dramatic rise in sales of products that are Non-GMO Verified really demonstrates the power you have as a consumer. And this is how we will ultimately win, because most food companies don’t have a particular pro-GMO agenda. They’re just selling what people will buy, and by using the most inexpensive ingredients possible they can increase profits. But if their profits go down due to an undesirable ingredient, they will change it.

So, to keep the momentum going, I urge you to purchase Non-GMO Project Verified foods, and to tell your friends and relatives to do the same. Explain to them why, and point them toward resources if they’re skeptical, or they’re concerned that this is all some over-emotional response that has no basis in science.
“We know that the information that we’re presenting at the Institute for Responsible Technology has been tested to verify change in people’s diet very quickly,” Smith says.”I recommend getting involved in our materials—our free newsletter at ResponsibleTechnology.org, for example—and sharing that information with others.”

Results from Animal-Feeding Studies Correlate with Human Disease Patterns

According to Smith, there are definitive correlations between the results from animal-feeding studies and the patterns of human disease we’re now seeing. For example, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine has done a number of animal-feeding studies on GMOs and specifically enumerated the particular categories of diseases and disorders found in these controlled environments:



“You look at the three different corresponding factors: (1) what humans are getting better from, (2) what livestock is getting better from, (3) what afflictions are afflicting the lab animals fed with GMOs, and then you look at what diseases are really taking off in the United States – they’re the same categories,” Smith says.
For example, kidney problems have been demonstrated in 19 different animal-feeding studies, and kidney diseases are on the rise in the US. Could there be a connection? Smith and I both believe this to be the case.

According to Smith:

“We heard from two people at a meeting in Arizona, someone whose husband was nearly on dialysis and someone else who had three kidney transplants – both situations reversed when they changed their diet.
You see things like the animal-feeding study out of Russia where the babies were a lot smaller after being fed GE soy, and you see the incidence of low-birth-weight babies is going up in the United States… Deaths from senile dementia moved along at a certain pace, and then when GMOs or Roundup were introduced, it shot up… So, you see these correlations between these four things now: (1) the animal-feeding studies, (2) people getting better [when removing GMO], (3) livestock getting better [when removing GMO], and (4) changes in the disease rates.”

Glyphosate Toxicity—Another Hidden Danger of GE Foods

There’s also another potent toxin associated with genetically engineered foods that is unrelated to the Bt toxin or the genetic alteration itself, and that is glyphosate—the active ingredient in Monsanto’s broad-spectrum herbicide, which is used on both GE crops and many conventional crops as well. The contamination appears to be greater in GE crops however, especially in so-called Roundup Ready crops. These are genetically altered to withstand otherwise lethal doses of the herbicide, and it’s important to realize that the glyphosate permeates the entire plant. It cannot be washed off.

In June, groundbreaking research was published detailing a newfound mechanism of harm for Roundup. The finding suggests that glyphosate may actually be the most important factor in the development of a wide variety of chronic diseases, specifically because your gut bacteria are a key component of glyphosate’s mechanism of harm.

Monsanto has steadfastly claimed that Roundup is harmless to animals and humans because the mechanism of action it uses (which allows it to kill weeds), called the shikimate pathway, is absent in all animals. However, the shikimate pathway IS present in bacteria, and that’s the key to understanding how it causes such widespread systemic harm in both humans and animals. The bacteria in your body outnumber your cells by 10 to 1. For every cell in your body, you have 10 microbes of various kinds, and all of them have the shikimate pathway, so they will all respond to the presence of glyphosate!

Glyphosate causes extreme disruption of the microbe’s function and lifecycle. What’s worse, glyphosate preferentially affects beneficial bacteria, allowing pathogens to overgrow and take over. At that point, your body also has to contend with the toxins produced by the pathogens. Once the chronic inflammation sets in, you’re well on your way toward chronic and potentially debilitating disease…

As stated by Smith:
“Roundup is actually patented as a biocide. It’s an antibiotic, it kills bacteria. That affects not only the soil, killing the beneficial bacteria that provide the nutrients to the soil, but it also kills the beneficial bacteria in your gut… It kills the Bifidus. It kills the Lactobacillus. But it keeps alive the E.coli, salmonella, and botulism, which is not something we want to keep alive. When you kill the beneficial gut bacteria, it affects your immune system and digestive tract.”

This remarkable finding was immediately followed by tests showing that people in 18 countries across Europe have glyphosate in their bodies,per-trillion range while yet another study revealed that the chemical has estrogenic properties and drive breast cancer proliferation in the parts-per-trillion range.4 This finding might help explain why rats fed Monsanto’s maize developed massive breast tumors in the first-ever lifetime feeding study published last year.

Other recently published studies demonstrate glyphosate’s toxicity to cell lines, aquatic life, food animals, and humans. In fact, research has shown that Roundup is toxic to human DNA even when diluted to concentrations 450-fold lower than used in agricultural applications. Liver, embryonic and placental cell lines are adversely affected by glyphosate at doses as low as 1 ppm. GMO corn can contain as much as 13 ppm of glyphosate, and Americans eat an average of 193 lbs of GMO foods annually.

The Road Ahead…

There’s every reason to be optimistic when it comes to getting GMOs out of our food supply. First of all, realize that we don’t have to affect policy change in order to take GMOs out; we can do it based on personal empowerment and individual decision making. To find out which brands and products have been Non-GMO Project Verified, see NonGMOShoppingGuide.com, or use the iPhone application ShopNoGMO – both are free. Another alternative with which you cannot go wrong is to buy organic whole foods, ditching processed fare altogether. But there’s more good news:

“We’re seeing now that it’s a movement that has its own life,” Smith says. “[At a recent event] someone said to me, ‘My dad saw the film Genetic Roulette, took GMOs out of his diet, sent us all a copy of the thing, and bought land so that he can produce food.’

What’s happening now is that there is a self-organizing and spontaneous uprising of people who have been maybe prescribed a non-GMO diet by the thousands of doctors who are doing so, or been inspired to remove it by watching our film or your materials, etc. This is a movement. The food industry now recognizes it. Those who are in a position to move quickly will take the most advantage of it. They’ll see an increase in sales in the US as happened in Europe and Australia in the early days when their tipping point happened.
Right now, in the 17 years that I’ve been working on this, when I was first alerted to the health dangers of GMOs by a genetic engineer, I have never seen a more potent window of opportunity. We know that we can’t ask the Obama administration for a bow out. We can’t wait for the FDA to become awake. We have to do it ourselves. The key is we are already doing it ourselves. There’s a momentum. Non-GMO products are growing faster than anything else right now in terms of categories, and the momentum is on our side.
The big test will be very shortly when we look inside the aisles of Safeway, Walmart, and Kroger – not the Whole Foods – to see if our message is moving the needle to win the battle for market share. If it does, every GMO-laden product, every product manager will realize it. It’ll become the industry sell signal. They will scramble to get their non-GMO products available quickly, and we will win.”

Join Us in Your Right to Know by Getting GMOs Labeled!

While California Prop. 37 failed to pass last November by a very narrow margin, the fight for GMO labeling is far from over. In the past few weeks, Connecticut and Maine have passed GMO-labeling bills, and 20 other states have pending legislation to label genetically engineered foods. So, now is the time to put the pedal to the metal and get labeling across the country—something 64 other countries already have.
I hope you will join us in this effort.

The field-of-play has now moved to the state of Washington, where the people’s initiative 522, “The People’s Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act,” will require food sold in retail outlets to be labeled if it contains genetically engineered ingredients. Please help us win this key GMO labeling battle and continue to build momentum for GMO labeling in other states by making a donation to the Organic Consumers Association (OCA).

Remember, as with CA Prop. 37, they need support of people like YOU to succeed. Prop. 37 failed with a very narrow margin simply because we didn’t have the funds to counter the massive ad campaigns created by the No on 37 camp, led by Monsanto and other major food companies. Let’s not allow Monsanto and its allies to confuse and mislead the people of Washington and Vermont as they did in California. So please, I urge you to get involved and help in any way you can.

No matter where you live in the United States, please donate money to these labeling efforts through the Organic Consumers Fund.

Sign up to learn more about how you can get involved by visiting Yeson522.com!

For timely updates on issues relating to these and other labeling initiatives, please join the Organic Consumers Association on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.

Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to actively support the Washington initiative.

Sources: rawforbeauty.com & mercola.com

7 Natural Uses For Baking Soda In The Garden

Natural Cures Not Medicine on Facebook: www.facebook.com/naturalcuresnotmedicine

Image: plantcaretoday.com
1. Non-Toxic Fungicide
Mix 4 tsp of baking soda and 1 gallon of water. Use to defend against black spot fungus on roses and to protect grapes and other vine plants upon the first fruits appearing.

2. Spray to Treat and Prevent Powdery Mildew
Combine 1 tbsp baking soda, 1 gallon water, 1 tbsp vegetable oil (any variety), 1 tbsp dishwashing liquid. Mix all ingredients and fill a spray bottle the mixture. Spray your at risk plants weekly, being sure to only apply on overcast days or days with no direct Sun to allow the mixture to dry before direct Sunlight returns - or the foliage can become Sun damaged. Powdery mildew typically attacks impatiens, lilacs, cucumbers, squash and zinnias.

3. Discourage Gnats In Soil & Fungus on Leaves
Combine 1 gallon water, 4 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp biodegradable soap. Mix thoroughly, spray infected foliage or soil as needed.

4. Discourage Weeds
Pour or sweep baking soda into cracks in sidewalks and patios. The thicker the amount the better. The baking soda should not only prevent weeds from developing, but it should also kill any small weeds that have already sprouted.

5. Kill Cabbage Worms
Mix equals parts flour and baking soda, then dust your effected plants being attacked by cabbage worms (cabbage, broccoli, kale). They chew the treated leaves and typically die within a day or two. Repeat dusting every couple of days until the cabbage worms are taken care of.

6. Kill Crabgrass
Just wet the crabgrass, pour a heavy dusting of baking soda on the weed. The crabgrass should start dying back in 2 or 3 days. However a word of caution - never apply to grass or other similar plants as it can burn and destroy your normal grass as well.

7. Clean Your Hands
After a day in the garden dirt, clean your hands by rubbing and scrubbing wet hands with baking soda. Rinse thoroughly.

Source: Homesteading Self Sufficiency Survival

5 Easy Steps to Grow GIANT Vegetables and Flowers

Natural Cures Not Medicine on Facebook: www.facebook.com/naturalcuresnotmedicine

Image: http://gardenofeaden.blogspot.mx
Many gardeners enjoy the competition of growing the largest vegetables and flowers - giant vegetables and flowers. It is truly amazing how large some of these giants will grow. I’m not talking about that baseball bat zucchini that hid out under the leaves. I’m talking about 100 pound cabbages and pumpkins that gain 25 pounds in a day. These giants take planning and care.

To seriously compete with the seasoned giant vegetable growers, you’ll need to put considerable effort into your soil, your choice of site and your gardening technique. But to get you started having some fun growing giant sized vegetables, here are 5 easy steps toward success.

Choose the Right Seed
This is the most important step, because some varieties simply grow larger than others. Serious giant growers will often seek out rare seeds to grow. You can start your own giant lineage by selecting a promising variety, like Atlantic Giant Pumpkin or Old Colossus Heirloom Tomato and then saving the seeds from your largest fruits for planting next year. (This only works with open-pollinated varieties, so steer clear of hybrids if you plan to save seeds.)

You may have to do some research on varieties that dependably grow into giants, but the name usually gives it away, like Russian Mammoth Sunflower, that grows upwards of 17 feet tall. Here are a few suggestions to get you started.

Cabbage: Northern Giant Cabbage (100 lbs.)
Carrot: Japanese Imperial Long Carrot (12+ inches long)
Cucumber: Mammoth Zeppelin Cucumber (16 pounds)
Gourd: Giant Long Gourd (120 Inches)
Onion: Kelsae Sweet Giant Onion (One held the world record at over 15 lbs.)
Pepper: Super Heavyweight Hybrid Pepper (½ pound each)
Pumpkin: Atlantic Giant Pumpkin (400 to over 1000 pounds) or
Squash: Show King Giant Green Squash (400+ pounds)
Sunflower: Grey Stripe Giant Sunflower (2 foot heads)
Tomato: Old Colossus Heirloom Tomato (2+ pounds)
Watermelon: Carolina Cross (Giant) Watermelon (200 pounds)
If you’ve had success growing a giant vegetable or flower, let us know what it was.

Give Them a Healthy Start
Beef up the soil your plants will be growing in before you even plant. Spread some manure or compost the fall prior planting. If you’re serious about competing, you should have a complete soil test done and replenish any nutrients and micro-nutrients that might be lacking.

Giant vegetables tend to grow in quick spurts, so they need lots of food. Slow acting organic fertilizers added at planting time will ensure that the food is there when the plant needs it. It will also make for a healthier soil and less pest problems.

And know what type of fertilizer your plant needs. If you’re growing the plant for the fruit, like pumpkins and tomatoes, you’ll want a fertilizer that’s high in potassium and phosphorous, the last two numbers on the package. If you’re growing a leafy vegetable, like cabbage, you’ll want a higher nitrogen number.

Water
Giant vegetables won’t be as tolerant of sporadic watering as the common garden vegetable would be - and even the common vegetable is touchy about not getting its one-inch per week. You have to provide regular deep waterings or your fruits will either languish or split. I recommend using drip irrigation on a timer that compensates for rain, so there are no slip-ups. Because as much as your plants need regular water, they don’t want to sit in wet soil.

Thin to Just the Best Fruits
The more fruits on your plants, the smaller they will be. If they have to compete for nutrients, they’re never going to be giants. So prune or pinch out all but about three of the largest, healthiest looking fruits. Later in the season, you might want to thin down to just one, but keep a couple of extras at the beginning for insurance.

Don’t worry about too much foliage. The foliage is what will be feeding the fruits and helping them grow larger.

Keep Close Watch for Problems
Pests, diseases and cultural problems can move in quickly and ruin an entire crop, especially when there are only a handful of fruits to begin with. Check your plants daily and correct any problems immediately. Try and remove problems by hand, since using chemicals can disrupt the plant too. Hopefully since you’ve given your plants every advantage, problems will be few.

Now comes the hard part. You have to be patient. Look but don’t touch. Too much fussing with your plants is as bad as too little. Let them do what they do and just enjoy watching them grow.

If you find yourself addicted to growing giant vegetables, talk with the competitors at your local county fair. Some will be coy, but many are very open and generous with their knowledge. They’ll know who has the best seed and will be happy to discuss technique with you. There may even be a regional Giant Vegetable Growers organization in your area.

For a humorous, but very informative peek into growing giant pumpkins, I recommend the book Backyard Giants - The Quest to Grow the Biggest Pumpkin Ever, by Susan Warren. Ms. Warren follows competitors through an entire growing season and gives us plenty of tips along the way.



6 vegetables to grow inside your apartment and how

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indoor gardenLet’s face it, not all of us have a lawn we can turn into food. Sometimes we just have to make do with what we can. Did you know that you can grow many different vegetables indoors? There are certain varieties that tend to flourish on windowsills or conservatories. So next time you may feel a bit defeated because you live in an apartment and cannot grow your own food, fret not, for there is a virtual cornucopia waiting to be grown right in your living room!
Even if you have a yard, the benefit to growing vegetables indoors is that some varieties can be cultivated year round. Also if you live in a cooler climate, there is no need to construct a greenhouse because you basically already live in one.
Tomatoes: There are plenty of varieties of tomato that can be grown indoors. Some do very well in hanging baskets. Varieties to plant in your indoor garden are, ‘Hundreds and Thousands,’ ‘Tumbler,’ ‘Maskotka,’ and ‘Garden Pearl.’ All of these varieties do very well in hanging baskets and can easily be hung in front of a window.
Radishes: While some root vegetables need too much depth to feasibly grow indoors, round radishes do not. They will work in most any container. Repurposed milk cartons do well for just a few seeds, just make sure to wash the container thoroughly prior to planting. Varieties that tend to do well inside are the fast-growing ones such as ‘Early Scarlet Globe,’ ‘Cherry Belle,’ and ‘Pink Beauty.’
Potatoes: Potatoes are especially easy to grow indoors. You can spout roots from any potato, but be sure to choose one with a lot of eyes. Place a few toothpicks in the potato to hold it up at the top of a container filled with water. Then place the container on the windowsill making sure the eyes are covered in water. It should sprout in about a week. You’ll want to choose a pot that is at least 12 inches deep. Place some pea gravel at the bottom of the pot for drainage and then fill the pot up about 1/3 of the way with soil. Place the potatoes root side down about 6 inches apart. As the plant grows you’ll need to add more soil. When the potato vine reaches the top of the pot, train them to go toward the window. Water them deeply. When small tubers begin to form on the vines your indoor harvest is ready for picking!

Mushrooms: You can grow a myriad of mushroom species indoors. In fact you can buy organic mushroom kits, with mycelium already spawned, online, and simply place them on your windowsill and water daily. But for the mushroom enthusiast, you need to start with a good sterile spawning medium and some spores. Organic rye seed works best for spawning shrooms, just make sure you are in a sterile environment to inject the grow bags with the spores. Place in a dark closest and make sure to maintain proper moisture. When the white mycelium starts to grow, usually around 2-4 weeks, you are ready to transfer to compost and grow your mushrooms. Oyster mushrooms do particularly well indoors and are a delightful treat.

Beans: Dwarf French Beans or one of the many other types of running beans are great for indoors. You can plant the beans in a relatively small pot on the windowsill or just below. When the beans sprout make sure you have fashioned a small trellis for them to climb into the window frame. The beauty of growing beans indoors is that not only will you get food, but the vines running up the window are aesthetically pleasing too!
Salad Greens: There are many different salad greens and leaf lettuce varieties that are great for indoors. Your indoor micro-green garden will also provide a beautiful sight. An important step to take is making sure that your pot has holes in it at the bottom for drainage, as greens are particularly susceptible to root rot. Make sure to keep the soil moist to the touch too. When the plants start to appear pinch off the new sprouts to keep the large healthy shoots growing. When they are tender enough, you can pick your salad right from the plant, one leaf at a time.

Source: Matt Agorist,  RealFarmacy.com 

How To Grow An Organic Salad Garden For The Whole Family

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A bowl of fresh salad greens is always a welcome addition for dinner. Growing your own lettuce is a snap. You will get the freshest, tastiest and most nutritious greens, and you can have a constant supply for many months out of the year.
Image: Real Farmacy

A small raised bed is ideal for this. It will be cleaner, easier to maintain and harvest, and provide the best soil conditions for plants. Patio containers do well enough, but they dry out faster than a garden bed. The bigger the container, the better.

The optimal size bed for a salad garden is 4’ x 4’ square, which allows for easy reach from all sides. This area should provide plenty of salad greens for a small family.

Many things can be used to frame the bed, from straw bales to cinder blocks to wood to rock edging. It should be at least 8” tall. Try to find a locally-produced source of high quality garden soil with compost, worm castings, or well-rotted manure mixed in. A bit of organic granular fertilizer  will help too. Bagged garden soil from the big box stores is not ideal, being a lifeless substrate suffused with chemical fertilizers.
Locate the salad garden in a spot that gets at least six hours of direct sunlight and is close to a source of water. If you’re in a hot climate, try to give it some afternoon shade. Do not put landscape fabric underneath the bed, as this will impede beneficial earthworms and prevent natural soil mixing. Cardboard can be laid over grass, which will smother vegetation but decompose fairly quickly and add organic matter.

Now, on to planting the salad garden. Leaf lettuce is ideal for the home gardener with little space, because you can keep picking the outer leaves and it keeps growing. While head lettuce is great, it takes longer to mature, is more finicky, and is harvested once.

Try to find leaf lettuce varieties that are recommended for your climate. Plant a couple of different types, such as Buttercrunch and Romaine lettuce, which will give you different textures. Include a red leafed variety for a color splash.

It is best to grow leaf lettuce from seed. Simply sow three seeds every six inches and cover with a very thin sprinkling of soil. Lettuce seeds need to “see the sunlight” to sprout. Water lightly every day.  They will take 10-14 days to sprout, but once they begin growing it won’t be long before harvest time. Pick the outer leaves and let the plants keep growing.

And finally, time your plantings 3 weeks apart for an extended harvest. Plant the northern half of the bed first, then plant the southern half three weeks later. Plant in a diamond pattern (3 seeds 6 inches apart) for optimal use of space.

If the lettuce goes from dark green to light green, fertilize with organic fish emulsion every couple of weeks. To add some diversity to your salad, plant long-lasting kale or Swiss chard in the “back” (the northern side) of the bed. Perhaps set aside one row for radish, which sprouts and grows quickly, for a spicy crunch in the salad.

Source: realfarmacy.com

Peru Joins the List of Countries Banning GMOs

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The first time I ever tasted a real tomato, I was in Cusco, Peru. I had picked them up at a Farmer’s Market, bought them from an old lady with wizened wrinkles and sun-browned skin. She’d carried a basket of them to market on foot from her scrap of land somewhere far down the mountain.

It was a revelation — heaven and sunlight on my tongue! I never knew tomatoes could pack such flavor. I fell in love with the country and it’s people, the Quechua indians who are the remnants of the once proud Incas. Thanks to the indomitable spirit of that people, a ten-year ban on GMOs takes effect this week in Peru!

Stephanie Whiteside reports,
Peru’s ban on GMO foods prohibits the import, production and use of genetically modified foods. The law is aimed at safeguarding the country’s agricultural diversity and preventing cross-pollination with non-GMO crops. It will also help protect Peruvian exports of organic products. (SOURCE: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_26686.cfm)

The victory is a long time coming.

The decree banning GMO foods was drafted in 2008. It not only bans GMO crops like Monsanto’s BT-Corn, but also expands on a prior law that required all foods on supermarket shelves that contain GMOs to be labeled. Those GMO containing foods will now be completely banned. After being subjected to public discussion, being amended, and finally passed in the Peruvian congress in April of 2011, the ban is finally going into effect this week.

A study done in April of 2011 by the Peruvian Association of Consumers and Users (ASPEC) tested 13 products purchased in major supermarkets and shops in Lima, Peru. Unsurprisingly, 10 out of 13 tested positive for containing GMOs.

President of ASPEC, Crisólogo Cáceres, comments,
Research by ASPEC confirms something that Peruvians knew all along: GM foods are on the shelves of our markets and wineries, and consumers buy them and take them into their homes to eat without knowing it. Nobody tells us, no one says anything, which involves a clear violation of our right to information. (SOURCE)

Protecting Bio-diversity

One of the biggest fears Peruvian farmers have regarding GMOs is the loss of biodiversity. In the scene above, Peruvian farmers in ponchos and chullos chanted outside of the Municipality of Lima. They represented the Parque de la Papa in Cusco, a farming community of 6,000 people who worry that the introduction of GMOs can and will compromise many of the famous native Peruvian species including purple corn, giant white corn, and the potato.

Alejandro Argumedo of the ANDES Association in Cusco says he worries about the physiological effects the introduction of GMOs would have on Peru’s native species. He says Peru has one of the top 10 biodiversities in the world, and it needs to be protected. To combat the crop diseases that Peruvian farmers suffer, he looks to diversification instead of GM seeds.

The people of Parque de la Papa cultivate a variety of potatoes in small plots. By doing so the farmers say they mitigate crop diseases that attack large plantations and secure the survival of varieties that are more resistant to disease or bad weather. (SOURCE)

Why 10 years?

Peruvian scientists believe that the research regarding the safety and effects on GMOs is still in its infancy. They hope that the moratorium will “create the research infrastructure it needs to make better decisions about transgenic crops.” (SOURCE)

Alejandro Argumedo summarizes it this way:
“Once we have contamination, there is no going back.” -Alejandro Argumedo, on prohibiting GMOs in Peru
Want to know more about GMOs?

Begin by reading Seeds Of Deception  by Jeffrey Smith. This meticulously documented exposé reveals what the biotech industry doesn’t want you to know — how industry manipulation and political collusion, not sound science, allow dangerous genetically engineered food into your daily diet. Company research is rigged, alarming evidence of health dangers is covered up, and intense political pressure applied. You’ll read the actual internal memos by FDA scientists warning of toxins, allergies, and new diseases—all ignored by their superiors, including a former attorney for Monsanto.

You’ll learn why the FDA withheld information from Congress after a genetically modified supplement killed nearly a hundred people and disabled thousands.

Article source: http://archive.peruthisweek.com/news/14842

Other sources: WHYDONTYOUTRYTHIS.COM

Raw For Beauty


This is How the Urban Gardening Movement Will Replace Welfare

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A recent study was conducted, state by state, of the monetary value of welfare benefits for a mother with two children. They found that in New York benefits would be around $38,000, the seventh highest in the nation.

Image: Harvesting Earth Urban Garden
The study explains the comparison of such an amount, “While that might not sound overly generous, remember that welfare benefits aren’t taxed, while wages are. So someone in New York would have to earn more than $21 per hour to be better off than they would be on welfare. That’s more than the average statewide entry-level salary for a teacher.

Plus, going to work means added costs such as paying for child care, transportation and clothing. Not to mention that, even if it’s not a money-loser, a person moving from welfare to work will see some form of loss — namely, less time for leisure as opposed to work.”

Obviously people apply for welfare benefits because they have come across hard times. However the incentive created by this particular program has some daunting implications. It seems that this once generous program started in the 30’s has turned into an unsustainable model of redistribution. What is to happen when the state can no longer afford to pay out these benefits?  The terminal characteristics of the current system happen to be a mathematical certainty. What will the tens of millions of welfare recipients do when this unsustainable model reaches its precipice of total collapse?

It is evident that the current system is broken and rife with negative incentive. So what is the answer? Should we try to petition the government for welfare reform? Good luck with that! Taking a proactive approach in your community is far more effective than petitioning bureaucrats with the sole intention of re-election.

This proactive approach is starting to pop-up around the country. Once we look at what people actually need to survive the choice on how to help them is quite evident. People need two basic things and they are food and shelter. Community gardens are a particularly effective method of providing the former.

Urban gardening is spreading and with good reason. Not only are food deserts a large problem in urban areas, but there also happens to be large areas of wasted land with garden potential. A  recent article in The Smithsonian highlighted the ‘Guerrilla Gardening’ efforts of a man named Ron Finley.  About three years ago, South Los Angeles resident Finley got fed up with having to drive more than half an hour to find a ripe, pesticide-free tomato. So he decided to plant a vegetable garden in the space between the sidewalk and street outside of his home, located in the working-class neighborhood where he grew up, surrounded by fast food restaurants, liquor stores and other not-so-healthy options. This tactic is spreading, and fast.

A community effort to produce food is the first major step to reducing state dependency. A community coming together to grow their own food generates the opposite incentive that the current welfare system creates. Instead of stoking dependency, people are empowered. Tending to a productive garden has been shown to increase the sense of well-being, confidence, and overall health; not to mention that it feeds you too!
So, next time you hear people talking about how the Democrats want this or the Republicans want this, offer a real solution. Grow your own sustenance, and truly give the power back to the people!

by Matt Agorist

Source: RealFarmacy.com

Farmers to Face Fines or Jail Time for Dealing Directly with Customers

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This would seem to embody the USDA’s advisory, “Know your farmer, know your food,” right? Not exactly.

For the USDA and its sister food regulator, the FDA, there’s a problem: many of the farmers are distributing the food via private contracts like herd shares and leasing arrangements, which fall outside the regulatory system of state and local retail licenses and inspections that govern public food sales.

Image: Natural Health Page
In response, federal and state regulators are seeking legal sanctions against farmers in Maine, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and California, among others. These sanctions include injunctions, fines, and even prison sentences. Food sold by unlicensed and uninspected farmers is potentially dangerous say the regulators, since it can carry pathogens like salmonella, campylobacter, and E.coli O157:H7, leading to mild or even serious illness.

Most recently, Wisconsin’s attorney general appointed a special prosecutor to file criminal misdemeanor charges against an Amish farmer for alleged failure to have retail and dairy licenses, and the proceedings turned into a high-profile jury trial in late May that highlighted the depth of conflict: following five days of intense proceedings, the 12-person jury acquitted the farmer, Vernon Hershberger, on all the licensing charges, while convicting him of violating a 2010 holding order on his food, which he had publicly admitted.

Why are hard-working normally law-abiding farmers aligning with urban and suburban consumers to flaunt well-established food safety regulations and statutes? Why are parents, who want only the best for their children, seeking out food that regulators say could be dangerous? And, why are regulators and prosecutors feeling so threatened by this trend?

Members of these private food groups often buy from local farmers because they want food from animals that are treated humanely, allowed to roam on pasture, and not treated with antibiotics. “I really want food that is full of nutrients and the animals to be happy and content,” says Jenny DeLoney, a Madison, WI, mother of three young children who buys from Hershberger.

To these individuals, many of whom are parents, safety means not only food free of pathogens, but food free of pesticides, antibiotic residues, and excessive processing. It means food created the old-fashioned way—from animals allowed to eat grass instead of feed made from genetically modified (GMO) grains—and sold the old-fashioned way, privately by the farmer to the consumer, who is free to visit the farm and see the animals. Many of these consumers have viewed the secretly-made videos of downer cows being prodded into slaughterhouses and chickens so crammed into coops they can barely breathe.

These consumers are clearly interpreting “safety” differently than the regulators. Some of these consumers are going further than claiming contract rights—they are pushing their towns and cities to legitimize private farmer-consumer arrangements. In Maine, residents of ten coastal towns have approved so-called “food sovereignty” ordinances that legalize unregulated food sales; towns in other states, including Massachusetts and Vermont, and as far away as Santa Cruz, CA, have passed similar ordinances.

The new legal offensive isn’t going over well with regulators anywhere. Aside from the Hershberger action in Wisconsin, and a similar one in Minnesota, Maine’s Department of Agriculture filed suit against a two-cow farmer, Dan Brown, in one of the food-sovereignty towns, Blue Hill, seeking fines and, in effect, to invalidate all the Maine ordinances. In April, a state court ruled against the farmer, and in effect against the towns; sentencing is due within several weeks, and the case could well be appealed.

The jury in the criminal misdemeanor case of Minnesota farmer Alvin Schlangen last September acquitted him of all charges after several hours of deliberation. But the regulators’ push against privately-distributed food continues unabated. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture has moved forward with a local prosecutor in Schlangen’s rural county, pressing similar criminal charges as the ones he was acquitted of in Minneapolis. He is scheduled to go on trial again in August. And in Wisconsin, prosecutors sought, unsuccessfully, to have Vernon Hershberger jailed for allegedly violating his jail terms since charges were filed in late 2011.

At its heart, this is a struggle over a steady erosion of confidence in the integrity of our industrial food system, which has been hit by disturbing disclosures seemingly on a weekly basis. In just the last few weeks, for example, we have seen shrimp, cookies, and veggie burgers recalled by the FDA for being sold with undeclared ingredients.
Also in recent weeks, members of Congress and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control have escalated warnings about the growing danger of antibiotic resistant pathogens emerging from farm animals, which consume about 80 percent of all antibiotics in the U.S. The Atlantic reported last summer that medical specialists are seeing a spike in women with urinary tract infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, likely transmitted by chicken meat.

This erosion in the confidence of the food system carries serious implications. It financially threatens large corporations if long-established food brands come under prolonged and severe public questioning. It threatens economic performance if foods deemed “safe” become scarcer, and thus more expensive. And it is potentially explosive politically if too many people lose confidence in the professionalism of the food regulators who are supposed to be protecting us from tainted food, and encourages folks to exit the public food system for private solutions like the consumers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maine, and elsewhere. Just look at the vituperative corporate response to recent consumer-led campaigns to label foods with genetically-modified ingredients.

As more consumers become intent on making the final decisions on what foods they are going to feed themselves and their families, and regulators become just as intent on asserting what they see as their authority over inspecting and licensing all food, ugly scenarios of agitated citizens battling government authorities over access to food staples seem likely to proliferate. It’s an unfortunate recipe for a new kind of rights movement centered on the most basic acts—what we choose to eat.

David E. Gumpert is a writer who covers the conflict between food rights and food safety. His latest book is “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Food Rights: The Escalating Battle Over Who Decides What We Eat”. His previous book was “The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights”. He has written for Modern Farmer, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Huffington Post, Grist, and Food Safety News. He is a former reporter with The Wall Street Journal and a former editor with The Harvard Business Review.

Source: RealFarmacy.com

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