100% GROSS - THINK ABOUT THIS WHEN YOU ORDER THAT STEAK

'Transglutaminase' and Other Fun New Foods

by Jim Hightower
Published on Wednesday, June 6, 2012 by Creators.com

Forget organic, locavore, omega3, umami, artisanal and all the other signposts of the healthy, ethical and refined "good food" movement, there are important advances in CuisineWorld that are going 180 degrees in the opposite direction — advances that literally are reshaping what we eat (while also reshaping us).A beef and chicken log. What can't you do with transglutaminase?

Let's start with red meat. Perhaps you're one who enjoys a steak dinner now and again. If so, let me ask this question: Do you prefer it with a nice Bernaise sauce, a side of garlicky spinach — or maybe some transglutaminase?

Trans-what-did-he-say?

Transglutaminase is an enzyme made by the fermentation of bacteria and added to meat pieces to make them stick together. Yes, "meat glue" — it's what's for dinner!

This is yet another dandy product from industrialized food purveyors that keep inventing new ways to mess with our dinner for their own fun and profit. Right about now, you're probably asking yourself, "Why do they need to glue meat together?"

Glad you asked. It's so the industry can take cheap chunks of beef and form them into what appears to be a pricey steak.

For example, that filet mignon you ordered at the Slaphappy Steakhouse chain recently — was it steak ... or transglutaminase? By liberally dusting meat pieces with transglutaminase powder, squishing them into filet mignon-shaped molds, adding a bit of pressure to bond the pieces and chilling them — voila, four-bucks-a-pound stew meat looks like a $25-a-pound filet mignon!

While glued-together, steak-like meat is surprisingly common in the food service industry, the corporations peddling it are not eager to let us consumers in on their little secret.

While glued-together, steak-like meat is surprisingly common in the food service industry, the corporations peddling it are not eager to let us consumers in on their little secret.

Well, sniffs the meat industry's lobbying group, it's not like the companies are deceiving eaters — those that use the process have to list transglutaminase on the ingredient label and stamp the package as "formed" or "reformed" meat. How honest! Except that most of these molded "filet mignon" are sold through high-volume chain restaurants, hotels, cafeterias and banquet halls — where unwitting customers never see the package or ingredient label.

This is why we should support truth-in-menu laws. Make them say "reformed and glued" filet mignon right on the menu. That simple step lets us decide if we really want to eat the stuff. Consumers should have the right to know ... and choose.A pizza with a hot dog crust. Delish.

Next on the menu: extra fat! While many cafes, bistros and even diners these days have moved to such healthy edibles as locally sourced beets and jicama on sustainably raised arugula dressed with small-batch artisan balsamic vinegar, Pizza Hut is proudly going for the hardy eater, shouting, "Let's get stuffed."

The chain has enhanced its belt-busting pepperoni and gooey cheese pizza by (get this) stuffing a long, looping hot dog right into the crust! But, if that's not caloric enough for you, Pizza Hut has also designed a pizza that is ringed by a dozen mini cheeseburgers baked directly onto the crust.

Hey, some might see obesity as a crisis, but YUM! Brands Inc., the conglomerate that owns Pizza Hut, sees it as a moneymaking opportunity. Don't fight it, feed it!

Not to be outdone, the Burger King chain is test-marketing a stunning advance in fusion cuisine at one of its Nashville outlets. It marries two essential food groups together: ice cream and pork. Yes, America, get ready for the Bacon Sundae! Topped off with caramel and chocolate syrup.

The pioneering innovator in obesity grub, however, comes from the city where anything goes and "too much" is never enough: Las Vegas. Many top chefs have opened four-star restaurants along the Las Vegas strip, but none can outstrip a local diner when it comes to extravagant excess. Unabashedly named the "Heart Attack Grill," this place takes pride in deep-fried, and its menu is filled with unhealthy eats. Renown for its Quadruple Bypass Burger, Butter Fat Shakes and Flatliner Fries cooked in pure lard, the grill brags that it serves food with "Taste Worth Dying For."

Indeed, two diners have collapsed so far this year while pounding down Bypass Burgers. To add to the charm, the grill offers a special deal for truly hefty eaters: If you weigh over 350 pounds, you can eat for free. So weigh in, tuck in — and bon appetite.

© 2012 Creators Syndicate

National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.

Source:   http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/06-1

OPEN LETTER OPPOSING BIG AG SUBSIDIES

Published on Tuesday, June 5, 2012 by Common Dreams

Experts Tell Congress: Support Healthy Food System, Not Big Ag

Ahead of 2012 Farm Bill, food and health experts send open letter to Congress blasting subsidies for 'big agriculture'

- Common Dreams staff

Seventy leading chefs, authors, food policy experts, nutritionists, CEOs, and environment and health organizations sent an open letter to Members of Congress today urging lawmakers to reinvest federal farm and crop insurance subsidy dollars into programs that feed the hungry, protect the environment and promote the consumption of local, organic and healthy food. Seventy leading chefs, authors, food policy experts, nutritionists, CEOs, and environment and health organizations have sent an open letter to Members of Congress urging lawmakers to reinvest federal farm and crop insurance subsidy dollars into programs that feed the hungry, protect the environment and promote the consumption of local, organic and healthy food.

The letter comes just days ahead of an expected Senate vote on the 2012 Farm Bill and was initiated by the Environmental Working Group's Kari Hamerschlag and authors Anna Lappé and Dan Imhoff. All the signatories expressed frustration with the draft of the bill that came out of the Senate Agriculture Committee earlier this year. It says the committee’s proposal is “seriously out of step with the nation’s priorities and what the American public expects and wants from our food and farm policy.”

"Investing in healthy food, healthy diets and critical nutrition programs for millions of struggling families across the country should be the priority as Congress writes the next farm bill," said Marion Nestle, the Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition at New York University. "Not more subsidies that send billions of scarce federal funds to the bank accounts of Big Food producers."

"We need a farm bill that supports farmers, rural communities, and those who are hungry, not a bill that gives unlimited subsidies to the biggest commodity producers while at the same time cutting programs for the neediest among us." --Anne Lappé

"We need a farm bill that supports farmers, rural communities, and those who are hungry, not a bill that gives unlimited subsidies to the biggest commodity producers while at the same time cutting programs for the neediest among us," said Lappé, author of Diet for a Hot Planet and cofounder of the Small Planet Institute. "We stand with the millions of Americans who share this common sense perspective."

The full letter follows:

Dear Member of Congress,

With the 2008 farm bill due to expire in a matter of months, the Senate Agriculture Committee approved legislation in April to steer the next five years of national food and agriculture policy. We applaud the positive steps that the proposed bill takes under Senator Debbie Stabenow’s leadership, including incentives for fruit and vegetable purchases, scaling up local production and distribution of healthy foods and bolstering marketing and research support for fruit, nut and vegetable farmers.

Unfortunately, the Senate bill falls far short of the reforms needed to come to grips with the nation’s critical food and farming challenges. It is also seriously out of step with the nation’s priorities and what the American public expects and wants from our food and farm policy. In a national poll last year, 78 percent said making nutritious and healthy foods more affordable and accessible should be a top priority in the farm bill. Members of the U.S. Council of Mayors and the National League of Cities have both echoed this sentiment in recent statements calling for a healthy food and farm bill.

Although the committee proposal includes important reforms to the commodity title, we are deeply concerned that it would continue to give away subsidies worth tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to the largest commodity crop growers, insurance companies, and agribusinesses even as it drastically underfunds programs to promote the health and food security of all Americans, invest in beginning and disadvantaged farmers, revitalize local food economies and protect natural resources. We strongly object to any cuts in food assistance during such dire times for so many Americans. These critical shortcomings must be addressed when the bill goes to the Senate floor.

As written, the bill would spend billions to guarantee income for the most profitable farm businesses in the country. This would come primarily in the form of unlimited crop insurance premium subsidies to industrial-scale growers who can well afford to pay more of their risk management costs. Crop insurance programs must be reformed to work better for diversified and organic farmers and to ensure comprehensive payment caps or income eligibility requirements. Otherwise, this so called “safety net” becomes an extravagant entitlement for affluent landowners and insurance companies.

In addition, the proposed $9 billion-a-year crop insurance program comes with minimal societal obligations. Growers collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance premium subsidies should at least be required to take simple measures to protect wetlands, grassland and soil. Instead, the unlimited subsidies will encourage growers to plow up fragile areas and intensify fencerow-to-fencerow cultivation of environmentally sensitive land, erasing decades of conservation gains.

Most of the benefits from these programs would flow to the producers of five big commodity crops (corn, soy, cotton, rice and wheat). Meanwhile, millions of consumers lack access to affordable fruits and vegetables, with the result that the diets of fewer than five percent of adults meet the USDA’s daily nutrition guidelines. Partly as a result, one in three young people is expected to develop diabetes and the diet-related health care costs of diabetes, cancer, coronary heart disease and stroke are rising precipitously, reaching an estimated $70 billion a year.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The Government Accountability Office has identified modest reforms to crop insurance subsidies that could save as much as $2 billion a year. Half could come from payment limits that affect just four percent of the growers in the program. Congress should use these savings to provide full funding for conservation and nutrition assistance programs and strengthen initiatives that support local and healthy food, organic agriculture and beginning and disadvantaged farmers. These investments could save billions in the long run by protecting valuable water and soil resources, creating jobs and supporting foods necessary for a healthy and balanced diet.

When it is your turn to vote, we urge you to stand up for local and healthy food and nutrition programs and to support equitable and fiscally responsible amendments that will protect and enhance public health and the environment while maintaining a reasonable safety net for the farmers who grow our food. More than ever before, the public demands this. Come November, they will be giving their votes to members of Congress who supported a healthy food and farm bill that puts the interests of taxpayers, citizens and the vast majority of America’s farmers first and foremost.

Our nation was built on the principles of protecting our greatest legacy: the land on which we grow our food and feed our families. Stand with us to protect not only farmers, without whom we would all go hungry, but to enact a food and farm bill that fairly and judiciously serves the interests of all Americans.

Sincerely,

Leigh Adcock	Executive Director, Women, Food and Agriculture Network
Will Allen	Farmer, Founder, CEO of Growing Power
Dan Barber	Executive Chef and Co-owner Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns
Neal D. Barnard, MD	President, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
Sung e Bai	Director of National Programs, Slow Food USA
Mario Batali	Chef, Author, Entrepreneur
Fedele Bauccio	CEO, Bon Appetit Management Company
Jo Ann Baumgartner	Wild Farm Alliance
Rick Bayless	Chef, Frontera Grill and Topolobampo
David Beckmann	President, Bread for the World
Andy Bellatti	Andy Bellatti, MS, RD, Andy Bellatti Nutrition
Wendell Berry	Lane's Landing Farm
Haven Bourque	Founder, HavenBMedia
Tom Colicchio	Craft Restaurants
Christopher Cook	Author of Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis
Ken Cook	President, Environmental Working Group
Ann Cooper	Chef and Founder, Food Family Farming Foundation
Ronnie Cummins	Organic Consumers Association
Laurie David	Author, Family Dinner
Michael R. Dimock	President, Roots of Change
Christopher Elam	Executive Director, INFORM
Maria Echeveste	Senior fellow, Center for American Progress (for affiliation purposes only)
Andy Fisher	Co-founder and founding Executive Director, Community Food Security Coalition
Chef Kurt Michael Friese	Owner, Devotay Restaurant & Bar and Publisher, Edible Iowa River Valley
Joan Dye Gussow	Grower, Author, Professor Emerita Teachers College, Columbia University
Melinda Hemmelgarn, MS, RD	Food Sleuth Radio
Gary Hirshberg	Co-founder and Chairman, Stonyfield
Mark Hyman, MD	Chairman, The Institute for Functional Medicine
John Ikerd	Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics
Dan Imhoff	Author, Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to the Next Food and Farm Bill
Wes Jackson	President, The Land Institute
Kristi Jacobson	Catalyst Films
Michael Jacobson	Executive Director, Center for Science in the Public Interest
Robert Kenner	Director, Food Inc.
Navina Khanna	Co-Founder and Field Director, Live Real
Andrew Kimbrell	Executive Director, Center for Food Safety
Fred Kirschenmann	Author, Cultivating an Ecological Conscience: Essays From a Farmer Philosopher
Melissa Kogut	Executive Director, Chefs Collaborative
Anna Lappé	Author, Diet for a Hot Planet, Cofounder, Small Planet Institute
Robert S. Lawrence, MD	Center for a Livable Future, Professor, Johns Hopkins University
Kelle Louaillier	Executive Director, Corporate Accountability International
Bill McKibben	Author, Deep Economy
Liz McMullan	Executive Director, Jamie Oliver Food Foundation
Craig McNamara	President Sierra Orchards and Center for Land-Based Learning
Carolyn Mugar	Founder and Director of Farm Aid
Frances Moore Lappé	Cofounder, Small Planet Institute
Dave Murphy and Lisa Stokke	Food Democracy Now!
Rev. J. Herbert Nelson, II	Director for Public Witness, Presbyterian Church
Marion Nestle	Professor, NYU and Author, Food Politics
Y. Armando Nieto	Executive Director, California Food and Justice Coalition
Nicolette Hahn Niman	Rancher, Author, Attorney
Denise O'Brien	Co-founder, Women, Food and Agriculture Network; organic farmer
Robyn O'Brien	Executive Director, AllergyKids Foundation
Michael Pollan	Professor, UC Berkeley School of Journalism
Nora Pouillon	Chef, Author, Owner of Restaurant Nora
LaDonna Redmond	Food Justice Advocate and Food and Community Fellow
John Robbins	Author, Diet For A New America, The Food Revolution, and No Happy Cows
Ocean Robbins	Host, Food Revolution Network
Ricardo Salvador	Union of Concerned Scientists
Eric Schlosser	Author, Fast Food Nation
Lori Silverbush	Silverbush Productions
Matthew Scully	Author, Dominion
George L. Siemon	CEO, Organic Valley
Michele Simon	President, Eat Drink Politics
Jim Slama	President, FamilyFarmed.org
Naomi Starkman	Founder, Editor-in-chief, Civil Eats
Anim Steel	Real Food Challenge
Josh Viertel	Former President, Slow Food USA
David Wallinga, MD	Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Alice Waters	Owner of Chez Panisse Restaurant
Andrew Weil, MD	Founder and Director, Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine
Tom and Denesse Willey	T&D Willey Farms
Paul Willis	Founder/Manager Niman Ranch Pork Company
Mark Winne	Mark Winne Associates

THANK MR. POTATOE-HEAD FOR NO GMO REGULATION - OR LABELS

20 Years of GMO Policy That Keeps Americans in the Dark About Their Food

Posted: 05/30/2012 10:34 am   

Dave Murphy

Founder, Food Democracy Now!

Dan Quayle and Michael Taylor's nightmare lives on

Popular resistance is boiling over on the GMO labeling issue, as the New York Times reported last week in a front-page story.

More than a million people have asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for mandatory labeling of genetically engineered food on a legal petition in March and on May 2, nearly a million voter signatures were submitted in California to place a GMO labeling initiative on ballot in November. Clearly, Americans believe strongly in their right to know what's in their food. Ninety percent of U.S. voters want this type of labeling. Yet we still don't have it. Why?

Twenty years ago this week, then-Vice President Dan Quayle announced the FDA's policy on genetically engineered food as part of his "regulatory relief initiative." The policy, Quayle explained, was based on the idea that genetic engineering is no different than traditional plant breeding, and therefore required no new regulations.

Five years earlier, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush visited a Monsanto lab for a photo op with the developers of Roundup Ready crops. According to a video report of the meeting, when Monsanto executives worried about the approval process for their new crops, Bush laughed and told them, "Call me. We're in the dereg businesses. Maybe we can help."

And help he did -- more than anyone could have ever imagined. Today, the politically motivated policy lives on, even though it contradicts modern scientific consensus.

How is it possible that the U.S. is making critical decisions about our food system with a decades-old policy that is at odds with global opinion? In a word: politics. As Quayle explained in the 1992 press conference, the American biotechnology industry would reap huge profits "as long as we resist the spread of unnecessary regulations."

Politics not Science Set the Agenda
Dan Quayle's 1992 policy announcement is premised on the notion that genetically engineered crops are "substantially equivalent" to regular crops and thus do not need to be labeled or safety tested. The policy was crafted by Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto lawyer who was hired by the Bush FDA to fill the newly created position of deputy commissioner of policy.

In an ironic twist, the Obama administration appointed Michael Taylor as the deputy commissioner of foods in 2009, where he now oversees food safety policy for the federal government. Taylor's appointment was highly controversial, not only for crafting this pseudo-scientific policy, which laid the groundwork for helping GMOs avoid rigorous scientific testing and common-sense labeling, but also for his role in guiding the approvallof Monsanto's genetically engineered synthetic hormone rBGH.

From the start, the policy of "substantial equivalence" had many critics. The concerns by the FDA's own scientists were summed up in a memo by FDA compliance officer Dr. Linda Kahl, who protested that the agency was "... trying to fit a square peg into a round hole... [by] trying to force an ultimate conclusion that there is no difference between foods modified by genetic engineering and foods modified by traditional breeding practices."

As Kahl wrote, "The processes of genetic engineering and traditional breeding are different, and according to the technical experts in the agency, they lead to different risks."

The FDA itself admitted as much in 2001, with a proposed policy that companies should notify the government at least 120 days before commercializing a transgenic plant variety and provide data on each separate genetic transformation event -- information they said they did not need for foods derived through traditional cross breeding.

In other words, the FDA said there is a difference between genetic engineering and traditional plant breeding. In spite of this, the FDA is still following the Dan Quayle/Michael Taylor-inspired policy instead of its 2001 policy to set the agenda.

Out of Step with World Opinion
Across the world, there is now agreement that genetically engineered foods are different from conventionally bred foods and that all genetically engineered foods should be required to go through safety assessments prior to approval.

These positions are spelled out by Codex Alimentarius, the food safety standards organization of the United Nations, which the World Trade Organization considers to be the global, science-based standards, and thus immune to trade challenges.

But, at present, none of the genetically engineered plants on sale in the United States can meet this global standard, because -- unlike all other developed countries -- the U.S. does not require safety testing of genetically engineered crops.

The U.S. stands nearly alone on the issue of labeling, too. More than 40 other countries require labeling of genetically engineered foods, including European Union member nations, Japan, Australia, Russia and even China, allowing consumers in those countries to make informed choices about whether or not to buy these foods. Yet we haven't been able to get labeling here in the U.S., thanks to Dan Quayle and Michael Taylor's deceptive policy.

Growing Pressure for Change
The FDA position on GMOs is also out of step with the wishes of the overwhelming majority of Americans, 90 percent of whom want labeling. The issue is so reasonable and makes such common sense that in November 2007, then-Senator Barack Obama felt compelled to make a promise to Iowa farmers that if elected he'd label GMOs, saying he'd "let folks know whether their food has been genetically modified because Americans should know what they're buying."

But lacking the courage or political will to get this done at the federal level, and stymied in the state legislative area -- nearly 20 states have tried to pass labeling mandates and failed due to intense lobby pressure by special interests -- all eyes are now on the California ballot initiative that will take the issue directly to voters.

As the Times reported, "The most closely watched labeling effort is a proposed ballot initiative in California that cleared a crucial hurdle this month, setting the stage for a November vote that could influence not just food packaging but the future of American agriculture.

The 20th anniversary of Dan Quayle's announcement fell on Memorial Day weekend, a fitting symbol for the question before us: Will democracy win out and will Americans have the right to know what's in our food? Or we will continue to let our food policy be ruled by political decisions engineered last century in a Monsanto boardroom by corporate lobbyists?

SOURCE:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-murphy/dan-quayle-and-michael-ta_b_1551732.html

"GOODNESS GRACIOUS (OFFICER KRUPKE), THAT'S WHY I'M A JERK??"

Most Creative Anti-Labeling Message Ever: Buying Organic Leads to Unethical Behavior

From the world of "now we've heard everything," a recent article on Reason.com cites studies claiming that buying organic food leads to anti-social behaviors, harsh judgment and unethical tendencies. One of the studies cited was authored by Kendall J. Eskine, a psychology professor at Loyola University New Orleans, who wrote the article "Wholesome Foods and Wholesome Morals? Organic Foods Reduce Prosocial Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments." Favorite quote?

"What the data suggest is that mere exposure to organic labeling can be enough to lead people to affirm their moral identities, which in much past research can lead people to act unethically later."

The study was mentioned - and pilloried - by Michael Feldman on the May 26 NPR program, "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me."

Reason.com is published by the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank called which, according to sourcewatch.org, is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Listed among its funders are the Koch Brothers and Philip Morris.

Article:

Do Organic Consumers Shop Exclusively at the Jerk Store?

A new study examines the connection between organic food marketing and anti-social behavior.

Baylen Linnekin | May 26, 2012

“Is that USDA organic or Oregon organic or Portland organic?” asks a character played by singer Carrie Brownstein, one of the stars of the great IFC network sketch comedy Portlandia, in a widely loved restaurant skit from the show’s first episode last year.
“It’s just all across the board organic,” the server responds before excusing herself.

When she returns a moment later, the waitress shares with the diners a pamphlet of information about the chicken before presenting its “papers” for inspection. This helps her to fill in the pretentious would-be diners on the life of “Colin,” who as its name suggests actually was a rooster—which makes the joke even funnier—before it came to star as an entrée.
Kendall J. Eskine, a psychology professor at Loyola University New Orleans, calls the Portlandia skit “very funny, to say the least.”

Eskine knows a thing or two about the links between thought, self, other, and eating. His body of research focuses on “how our everyday embodied experiences shape our cognitive architecture.”
His latest paper, "Wholesome Foods and Wholesome Morals? Organic Foods Reduce Prosocial Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments," looks at whether people exposed to organic food marketing are so self-satisfied that they are less likely to express empathy toward others.

Extrapolating from existing research on “moral licensing” that found a negative relationship between altruism and salient moral identity, Eskine theorized his research would reveal “that those exposed to organic foods would help less and make harsher moral judgments compared to those exposed to non-organic foods.”
Indeed Eskine's latest research, published last week in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, pegs organic consumers as anti-social jerks. Or at least those are the sort of stark terms that the press has used to frame Eskine’s research.
And while at least some segment of organic consumers has been painted as pretentious and elitist since even before Dave Barry was cracking timely Windows 98 jokes, Eskine says that lumping his research in with such anti-organic digs misses his point.

“I’m not arguing that organic food itself is making people harsh judgers or non-altrustic,” he tells me by email. “What the data suggest is that mere exposure to organic labeling can be enough to lead people to affirm their moral identities, which in much past research can lead people to act unethically later.
“This research points to the idea that its marketing might entice people to affirm their moral identities,” Eskine says. “I think it’s important for eaters of all types to be mindful of their decisions and try to extend their altruism beyond mere food purchases.”

But if people have misunderstood his point at times, it may be because Eskine’s paper appears to conflate “organic foods” with “organic marketing,” and to focus more on the former than on the latter. The word “label” also appears just once in the paper.
Not surprisingly, some critics have pounced on the study. Its research “methodology was utterly ridiculous,” writes Martin Cizmar, a Portland writer and author of the so-ironic-it’s-not-ironic-it’s-ironic book Chubster: A Hipster’s Guide to Losing Weight While Staying Cool.

Another critic calls Eskine’s methodology “demented” for—among other claimed faults—its small sample size. But in the next sentence that same writer goes on to belittle the integrity of the five-dozen or so anonymous undergraduate students who Eskine (like many academic researchers) used as research subjects—saying undergrads are “not exactly known for the tensile strength of their moral fiber.”

Even though that critic’s argument was stillborn, the Eskine study does appear to have limitations.

For example, while this is the first study to look at “organic foods [that] are often marketed with moral terms (e.g., Honest Tea, Purity Life, and Smart Balance),” the link between moral marketing and organics here is tenuous. According to the Smart Balance website, for example, only two out of 33 Smart Balance products even use the term “organic” in their marketing. That means consumers can still attach a level of “smart”-ness to themselves when buying non-organic Smart Balance purchases.
Eskine calls this a “tricky question” and says he’s “currently designing a study to test this exact question.”
Given the heated food rhetoric I see every day, it’s no surprise that writers and bloggers have labeled Eskine everything from a “stooge” to a “troll,” and given rise to the inevitable claims that Eskine is a corporate plant or some sort of Johnny Monsantoseed.
So who did fund the study?
“I received NO funding for this research,” Eskine says, “and it’s disheartening when everyone assumes otherwise.”

But Eskine must hate organics, right? Strike two.
“I regularly purchase organic foods and do not think they make people ‘jerks,’” he says. “I regularly consume organic food and believe it is the environmentally and ethically superior choice when one has the resources and access to such products,” he adds.

Organic consumers may not be jerks, but it’s just as true that we can’t all afford a Colin in every pot.
Baylen J. Linnekin, a lawyer, is executive director of Keep Food Legal, a Washington, D.C. nonprofit that advocates in favor of food freedom—the right to grow, raise, produce, buy, sell, cook, eat, and drink the foods of our own choosing.

Listen to the 'Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me' Podcast Here

THANKS TO YOU - FOR THE FIRST $2M - TO JUST LABEL IT!

You Did It! Money Bomb Campaign Raises First $2 Million for the California Right to Know GMO Labeling Campaign!

They said we couldn’t do it. But thanks to you, we did! Our ‘Drop the Money Bomb on Monsanto’ campaign proved the power of grassroots fundraising and sent a strong message to Monsanto and the rest of the anti-labeling brigade: Consumers have united with a broad coalition of food, farm, health, public interest, leading organic food companies, and environmental groups all over the country and we will do whatever it takes to pass the California Right to Know GMO Labeling law.

After decades of demanding the right to know if our food contains GMOs, we are closer than ever to passing a mandatory GMO labeling law. Passing this law in California represents our best chance ever to guarantee consumers’ right to know on a national scale.

It’s shameless. More than 40 countries require genetically modified ingredients to be labeled. But thanks to the FDA and its cozy relationship with Monsanto, we have been denied this right.

This $2 million is the first step in building an effective campaign to pass this law. Big Biotech and Food Inc. will outspend us by millions, but with public opinion, truth, and you on our side, we can win.The Money Bomb campaign’s official deadline has come and gone. But we will continue raising money for this fight.

Donate to the OCF and the Drop the Money Bomb on Monsanto Campaign (non-tax-deductible, but necessary for our legislative efforts in California and other states)

Donate to the Organic Consumers Association (tax-deductible, helps support our work on behalf of organic standards, fair trade and public education)

CESIUM CONTAMINATED TUNA - HARDLY HARMLESS

Nuclear Tuna and NPR's Trivialization

NPR shouldn't trivialize the risk of radioactive tuna from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

by Robert Alvarez
Published on Friday, June 1, 2012 by Institute for Policy Studies Blog

Yesterday, National Public Radio (NPR) ran a story asserting that cesium-137 from the Fukushima nuclear accident found in Bluefish tuna on the west coast of the U.S. is harmless.It is not advisable to eat Bluefin Tuna. (Photo by tokyofoodcast)
It's not harmless. The Fukushima nuclear accident released about as much cesium-137 as a thermonuclear weapon with the explosive force of 11 million tons of TNT. In the spring of 1954, after the United States exploded nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, the Japanese government had to confiscate about 4 million pounds of contaminated fish.
Radiation from Fukushima spread far and wide. Like American hydrogen bomb testing, the Fukushima nuclear accident deposited cesium-137 over 600,000 square-miles of the Pacific, as well as the Northern Hemisphere and Europe. With a half-life of 30 years, cesium-137 is taken up in the meat of the tuna as if it were potassium, indicating that the metabolism holds on to it.
According to a previously secret 1955 memo from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission regarding concerns of the British government over contaminated tuna, "dissipation of radioactive fall-out in ocean waters is not a gradual spreading out of the activity from the region with the highest concentration to uncontaminated regions, but that in all probability the process results in scattered pockets and streams of higher radioactive materials in the Pacific. We can speculate that tuna which now show radioactivity from ingested materials have been living, in or have passed through, such pockets; or have been feeding on plant and animal life which has been exposed in those areas."

In 2001, the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry noted that "...concentrations of cesium within muscle tissue are somewhat higher than the whole-body average. Cesium has been shown to cross the placental barrier of animals..."

There are several reasons why it's not advisable to eat Bluefin tuna:

• Cesium-137 adds to the contaminant risk of harm to humans eating the Bluefin tuna, especially pregnant women and infants, who are the most vulnerable, and will for some time to come.
• Bluefin tuna is an endangered species because of over-fishing and contamination.
• Bluefin tuna accumulate other contaminants such as mercury from sources such as coal-fired power plants.

If NPR had been around in the 1950's, would it also have trivialized the impacts of open-air hydrogen bomb testing?

© 2012 Institute for Policy Studies

Robert Alvarez, an Institute for Policy Studies senior scholar, served as senior policy adviser to the Energy Department's secretary and deputy assistant secretary for national security and the environment fro m 1993 to 1999.
SOURCE:  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/01-2

OUR TAX DOLLARS - PAYING MILLIONS IN SUBSIDIES TO ANONYMOUS BIG AG

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 31, 2012 4:01 PM

CONTACT: Environmental Working Group (EWG) Sara Sciammacco; ssciammacco@ewg.org

Government Records Show Crop Insurance Subsidies Are A Boon To Big Farm Interests

WASHINGTON - May 31 - A new analysis of over a million government records never before made public and obtained by the Environmental Working Group through the Freedom of Information Act has found that in 2011 more than 10,000 individual farming operations have received federal crop insurance premium subsidies ranging from $100,000 to more than $1 million apiece. Some 26 farming operations received subsidies of $1 million or more last year.
It is the most detailed disclosure of federal crop insurance benefits to date, tracking subsidies across 686,273 insurance policies issued to 486,867 policyholders last year, when the program’s costs exceeded a record $11 billion. Yet one crucial detail is missing, deliberately and by an act of Congress: the names of the beneficiaries.
“The eye-opening analysis shows crop insurance is not only very expensive, but also very, very generous to large and highly profitable farm businesses,” said Craig Cox, EWG senior vice president of agriculture and natural resources. “Now the public needs to know who they are.”
Using FOIA requests, EWG collected information from U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency about crop insurance policies and premium subsidies for individual policyholders in each U.S. state and county. The records analyzed by EWG establish that the holders of subsidized crop insurance policies, unlike other Americans engaged in professional and commercial enterprises, enjoy extraordinarily costly federal perks in the form of premium subsidies.
U.S. taxpayers pick up an average of about 62 percent of the crop insurance premiums for farm businesses. Their share of these premiums has soared from $1.5 billion in 2002 to $7.4 billion in 2011. The subsidies go to large operators with no conservation strings attached to protect water and soil, no means testing, and no payment limit on how much a farm business can collect.
Among the facts disclosed by the documents:

• A single farm business in Florida received $1.9 million in subsidies for premiums to insure crops of tomatoes and peppers in five counties.
• A Minnesota farm business insuring corn and soybeans in eight counties received $1.7 million in federal crop insurance subsidies.
• In Texas, the 10 percent of farm businesses that received the greatest amount of insurance subsidies harvested 63 percent of all the crop insurance subsidies that went into the state last year.
• The 10 percent of North Dakota farm businesses that received the greatest amount of insurance subsidies took in 45 percent of the subsidies going to all farms in the state.

The analysis also shows that while crop insurance benefits, like farm subsidies, are concentrated in the hands of a small number of large farming operations, premium subsidies are modest for the overwhelming majority of crop insurance policyholders. Those farm operations would be unaffected by premium subsidy limits now being debated in Congress, such as the $40,000 limit analyzed by the Government Accountability Office earlier this year. The bottom 80 percent of policyholders (389,494 operations), for instance, received subsidies worth just over $5,000 in 2011.
The insurance subsidies are so controversial, and so lucrative to the companies that administer it, that the industry’s powerful lobbyists prevailed on Congress to bar the U.S. Department of Agriculture from disclosing identities of individual policyholders who reap the benefits.
“Taxpayers don’t know who is getting our money,” said EWG president Ken Cook. “Why hasn’t Congress done its job and released the names for everyone to see, instead of serving the interests of the crop insurance lobby?”
EWG has long advocated for increased transparency and accountability in the burgeoning federal crop insurance program.
“Senate agriculture committee leaders ought to lift the veil of secrecy before the 2012 farm bill hits the floor next month,” said Cook. “We must stop giving big payouts that guarantee income to big agribusiness and pass a fair and equitable farm bill that makes meaningful reforms to crop insurance, feeds the hungry, and improves the environment and public health,” said Cook.

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The mission of the Environmental Working Group (EWG) is to use the power of public information to protect public health and the environment. EWG is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, founded in 1993 by Ken Cook and Richard Wiles. 

SOURCE:   http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2012/05/31-4