Flawed organic #foods study really just a media #psyop to confuse the public about organics while pushing #GMOs #MSM
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
by Mike Adams.
(NaturalNews) If you read the mainstream news headlines today, you might be shocked to see headlines that say things like, “Organic foods no healthier than conventional foods” or “Organic foods may not be healthier for you.” You’ll see these headlines all across the usual disinfo outlets: NPR, Associated Press, Reuters, Washington Post, WebMD and elsewhere.
The problem with these headlines is that they are flatly false. The study these news outlets are quoting actually confirms that organic foods are far healthier for you than conventional foods.So how is the mainstream media lying about this? By fudging the facts, of course.
For starters, the “study” isn’t even a study. It was just a review of other studies. No new laboratory analysis was done whatsoever!
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Food Riots Predicted after US Crop Failure
I urge you to read the whole article. You know what? Why can’t global south nations like Haiti and Burkina Faso GROW their own crops??? Oh wait, that’s right. The greedy neo-imperialist Western and Chinese corporations have bought all the farming land in many global south nations, wiping out the local farmers and then shipping out homegrown food overseas. Fucking pathetic.
The world is on the brink of a food “catastrophe” caused by the worst US drought in 50 years, and misguided government biofuel policy will exacerbate the perilous situation, scientists and activists warn.
When food prices spike and people go hungry, violence soon follows, they say. Riots caused by food shortages - similar to those of 2007-08 in countries like Bangladesh, Haiti, the Philippines and Burkina Faso among others - may be on the horizon, threatening social stability in impoverished nations that rely on US corn imports.
This summer’s devastating drought has scorched much of the mid-western United States - the world’s bread basket.
Crops such as corn, wheat, and soy have been decimated by high temperatures and little rain. Grain prices have skyrocketed and concerns abound the resulting higher food prices will hit the world’s poor the hardest - sparking violent demonstrations.
Early dryness in Russia’s wheat growing season, light monsoon rains in India, and drought in Africa’s Sahel region, combined with America’s lost crop, mean a perfect storm is on the horizon.
Surging food prices could kick off food riots similar to those in 2008 and 2010, Professor Yaneer Bar-Yam, president of the New England Complex Systems Institute, told Al Jazeera.
“Recent droughts in the mid-western United States threaten to cause global catastrophe,” said Bar-Yam, whose institute uses computer models to identify global trends.
(via mamitah)
The Environmental Impact Of Wasted Food
Think twice before you throw away those leftovers. This infographic illustrates how wasted food has an impact that ripples across the environment.
We wrote last week about our giant food waste problem. Here’s more fuel for the fire: an infographic from U.K. food industry magazine Next Generation Food that illustrates the environmental impact of wasted food.
The infographic includes some remarkable statistics taken from a peer-reviewed studyabout food waste in the U.S. Waste has increased by about 50% since 1974, and now accounts for nearly 40% of all food produced in the U.S. Across the supply chain, we lose 1,400 kilocalories per head per day, or 150 trillion kilocalories each year (kilocalories are the “calories” you see on the back of food packs). Food waste accounts for a quarter of the freshwater supply, and 300 million gallons of oil a year. That’s a lot of wasted resources at a time of water shortages and higher gas prices. The U.S. consumed 6.9 billion barrels of oil last year, according to the Energy Information Administration.
It wouldn’t be so bad if we did something with the waste other than throwing it in landfills, where it produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Food accounts for 25% of methane produced from landfills, which emit 20% of methane overall. Something to chew on.
(via mamitah)
Olympic brand #McDonald's suffers #Twitter humiliation
Boris Johnson’s endorsement of McDonald’s Olympic credentials has proved to be a kiss of death, cementing the fast food giant at the bottom of a brand reputation tracker monitoring Twitter sentiment toward the 25 official sponsors of the London Games.
The mayor of London told reporters on Thursday that criticism of McDonald’s was “all just bourgeois snobbery”.
“It’s classic liberal hysteria about very nutritious, delicious, food – extremely good for you I’m told – not that I eat a lot of it myself,” he said. “Apparently this stuff is absolutely bursting with nutrients.”
The comments attracted significant negative sentiment on social media, which were amplified when comedian Frankie Boyle, who has more than 800,000 followers, weighed in on the subject.
“Don’t know how much sponsorship McDonalds paid for the Olympic mayor to be a fucking clown,” he said on his official account @frankieboyle.
As a result the McDonald’s brand took a hammering a day before the opening ceremony, in a daily Olympic Twitter tracker of the buzz around the 25 official sponsors.
The tracker – which measures factors including volume of tweets, sentiment, potential reach of the tweeter and if tweets get responses – plummeted to a record low on Thursday.
McDonald’s has been languishing at the foot of the table for the last three weeks – with daily scores of between minus 70,000 to 100,000 – however Johnson’s comments triggered a surge in negative sentiment to almost negative 1m.
“Johnson’s comments were amplified by Frankie’s Boyle’s negative response,” said Rory Maxwell, associate director of MediaCom Sport. “Because he is a celebrity with a big following it had a massive impact on McDonald’s Olympic Twitter score. The score is a reflection of the level of negative opinion of the brand.”
To put McDonald’s score into perspective the next lowest rating was for Dow, on just more than 200,000, while the sponsor leading the tracker on Thursday was Coca-Cola.
Feed the Birds — Organically | DIY
Insecticide-laden Birdfeed Reveals Need for Chemical-free Seed
I’ll admit that in the hierarchy of pressing environmental issues, guaranteeing chemical-free birdseed doesn’t make the top of the take-action list. But recent revelations that the Scotts Company distributed millions of packets of insecticide-laden birdfeed point out the need to ensure that bird lovers aren’t accidentally feeding chemicals to the birds that visit their yards.
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Of course, people’s good intentions will backfire if they are providing birds with feed containing chemicals that are dangerous to the birds’ health. Deb Martin, author of The Secrets of Backyard Bird-Feeding Success, recommends Wild Birds Unlimited as a good source of natural feed. A quick Google search also turned up the folks at Harrison’s Bird Foods, who sell a product that is certified to meet the USDA organic standards. Another option, according to birder Martin, is to make your own seed by sowing a crop of sunflowers in your hard and leaving them for the birds to forage.
It would seem to be worth the extra money and added effort of paying for certified organic birdseed and/or growing it yourself. If you wouldn’t eat industrial food yourself, you shouldn’t feed it to your feathered friends either.
More on The EnvironmentaList | Earth Island Journal | Earth Island Institute
$4.5 million fine #US industrial for distributing contaminated birdseed
Highlights need for constant monitoring
February 2012: Gardening company Scotts Miracle-Gro has pleaded guilty to charges of distributing insecticide-tainted bird seed, highlighting the need for continued monitoring of the safety of bird seed supply in the US, says American Bird Conservancy (ABC).
The One That Got Away
A single nutrient may have turned early humans into civilized man. Has stripping it from our diet given rise to cancer, diabetes, and other civilized diseases?
By Taras Grescoe, Illustrations by Marc Buckhardt
Better Know Your Fish: A Species Guide to the Highest Levels of Omega-3s
There’s no question: Choosing seafood these days isn’t easy. Some species (e.g., bluefin tuna and Atlantic halibut) have been fished to near extinction. Others (swordfish, farmed salmon) can contain nasty persistent organic pollutants (dioxins, PCBs) or be so high in mercury you might as well be chewing on a thermometer. (Go to gotmercury.org for an easy-to-use tool that shows where your favorites stand.) Generally, small, oily ocean fish (herring, mackerel) are low in toxins and score highest in omega-3s, while freshwater species (catfish, tilapia) have the lowest level of omega-3s because they don’t eat the beneficial ocean plankton that bioaccumulates into this nutrient. Here’s a countdown of the omega-3 levels in a three-ounce serving of common seafoods, from salmon to lobster. An important note: Farmed fish fattened with soy, as well as breaded and fried fish, can be as high in omega-6s as a cheeseburger. And a final word to the wise: When it comes to canned fish, go for sardines and tuna packed in water or olive oil rather than high-omega-6 vegetable oils.
Climatic changes hit farming in coastal Orissa
February 9, 2012, by
Rise in temperature and sea level has made agriculture vulnerable as seawater is more often gushing into the paddy fields with saline water
Submitted on 02/06/2012 – 09:50:23 AM
Bhubaneswar: Agriculture across the coast of Orissa is now facing a situation of climate emergency, threatening food security in such areas where climate change has been a phenomenon.
Rise in temperature and sea level has made agriculture vulnerable as seawater is more often gushing into the land filling paddy fields with saline water.
“The sea is crossing the embankment more often and damaging our crops by filling the land with saline water”, a farmer in Udaykani village in Puri District laments.
Because agriculture is almost regularly hit by tidal waves and floods, food security of these people has been threatened as they have no other option to earn a livelihood and feed the family.
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