Archive for the ‘Food and Health’ Category

by Christina Luisa, NaturalNews

Among all the raw milk madness happening right now, NaturalNews recently covered the biased information coming from government sources and how it makes dispelling the myths and regulations surrounding raw milk difficult.

The government’s continual condemnation of raw milk’s safety and presentation of false statistics meant to frighten the public have begun a fierce campaign against this wholesome and nutritious food. Yet more and more people are being made aware of the truth about raw milk’s ability to improve nutrition and enhance health.

Althoughthe FDAand CDC manipulatestatisticsand lie about rawmilk, concealing the frightening truth aboutpasteurized milkin the process, there are endless REAL statistics available to attest to thehealth benefitsof raw milk.

Read more about the true differences of unpasteurized and raw milk (http://www.naturalnews.com/033242_C…).

Some of the following statistics on thehealthbenefits and safety ofraw milkare listed below (http://www.realmilk.com/rawmilkover…).

• Claims that raw milk is unsafe are based on 40-year-old science and century-old experiences fromdairy“factory farms” in nineteenth century America.

• Compared to 30-50 years ago, dairy farmers today can take advantage of many advancements that contribute to a dramatically safer product including pasture grazing, herdtesting, effective cleaning systems, refrigeration, significantly less expensive, more accessible and more sophisticated milk and herddiseasetesting techniques.

• Raw milk is the ONLYfoodthat has extensive built-insafetymechanisms and numerous components to create a healthy immune system.

• In earlystudiesinvolving humans, raw milk was shown to be superior topasteurizedin protecting againstinfection, diarrhea, rickets, tooth decay and TB; and children receiving had better growth than those receiving pasteurized milk.

• Although raw milk, like any food, can become contaminated and cause illness, thedangersof raw milk are greatly exaggerated. In an analysis of reports on 70outbreaksattributed to raw milk, many examples were found of reportingbias, errors and poor analysis resulting in most outbreaks having either no valid positive milk sample or no valid statistical association. (ResponsetoMarlerListofStudies.pdf)

• In early animal studies,animalsfed raw milk had better growth, denser bones, greater integrity of internal organs, less anemia, fewer signs of anxiety and stress, and fewer signs of nutrient deficiency than animals fed pasteurized milk.

• Three recent studies in Europe found thatdrinkingraw milk protected against asthma andallergies. (Lancet. 2001 Oct 6;358(9288):1129-33; J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2006 Jun;117(6):1374-8; Clinical & Experimental Allergy. 2007 May; 37(5) 627-630).

• In the early 1900s, the Mayo Clinic administered the “Milk Cure,” which consisted in drinking 4-5 quarts of raw milk per day, obtaining favorableresultsfor a range of illnesses including cancer, weight loss, kidney disease, allergies, skin problems, urinary tract problems, prostate problems and chronic fatigue; these results are not obtained using pasteurized milk.

• Many studies have linked consumption of pasteurized milk with lactose intolerance, allergies,asthma, frequent ear infections, gastro-Intestinal problems, diabetes, auto-Immune disease, attention deficit disorder and constipation. During a period of rapid population growth, the market for fluid pasteurized milk has declined at 1% per year for the past 20 years because fewer and fewer consumers can tolerate pasteurized (and ultrapasteurized) milk (Don’t Drink Your Milk, Frank Oski, MD, 1983).

• In a survey of raw milk drinkers in the state of Michigan, over 80% of those advised by a healthcare professional that they were lactose intolerant were able to consume raw milk without problem. (LactoseIntoleranceSurvey.doc)

• Compared to raw milk there are 515 times more illnesses from L-mono due to deli meats and 29 times moreillnessfrom L-mono due to pasteurized milk. On a PER-SERVING BASIS, deli meats were TEN times more likely than raw milk to cause illness. (Based on data in a 2003 USDA/FDA report)

• Due to high-volume distribution and its comparative lack of anti-microbial components, contaminated pasteurized milk has caused numerous widespread and serious outbreaks of illness, including a 1984-5outbreakafflicting almost 200,000 people. In 2007, three people died in Massachusetts from illness caused by contaminated pasteurized milk.

All kinds of things are far more dangerous than raw milk

Regardless of the endless proof that drinking raw milk from puresourcesis extremely safe, thegovernmentcontinues to push its agenda and raw milk bias by portraying raw milk as an incredibly hazardous substance.

Yet the government openly regulates and approves of tons of dangerousproductsand activities on a regular basis (and most all of them are certainly more dangerous than drinking raw milk!) Here are just a few examples to start with:

• Riding in a grocery shopping cart

• Smoking cigarettes and cigars

• Chewing tobacco

• Signing up for military combat

• Consuming alcohol

• Chemotherapy

• Vaccines

• Mammograms

• CT scans

• Taking FDA-approved pharmaceuticals

• Downhill skiing

• Water sports

• Gymnastics

• Driving in automobiles

• Mercury fillings andmercuryin tuna fish

• Skateboarding

• Rock-climbing, mountain climbing, mountain biking

• Using hair dyes

• Peanut and gluten products (potentially lethal or damaging allergens to many)

• Eating fast food and processedfoodsregularly

• Driving while texting/talking on the phone

• Fireworks

• Cough syrups with hydrocodone

• Working in construction

• Consuming fluoride

And this is just a fairly short list to start. There are plenty more examples where these came from – I’m sure you could even come up with some of your own.

This is another clear example of how present-day events and conditions have increasingly been leading America toward becoming a state in which government leaders control our lives rather than allowing us to decide things for ourselves.

You may not care for drinking raw milk, but this issue is evidence to all of our government’s agenda to cultivate a culture of lies. Although they are aware that raw milk (when acquired from clean, grass-fed cows) is endlessly more nutritious than pasteurized milk, they continue to present dishonestinformationabout it and to conceal the hard facts about much more clear and present dangers throughout the rest of the food supply, including the more popular pasteurized milk.

TheFDAand CDC are purposely doing their part in the enactment of a society that is riddled with increasing cases of sickness and death. This barbaric deception does not only apply to raw milk, but to any number of healthful, raw whole foods and nutritional supplements, and it is this sort of behavior that is contributing to our country’s declining health and freedom.

WAPF has put together a comprehensive report about the anti-raw milk conspiracy where you can find much more detailed cases and information than what has been covered in this article (http://westonaprice.org/press/fda-a…).

Sources used:

http://www.westonaprice.org/
http://westonaprice.org/press/fda-a…
http://www.naturalnews.com/033242_C…

Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/033348_raw_milk_public_safety.html#ixzz1VkM9LrB9

by Brett Lorenzen, EWG

Over the past year, industrial produce growers and pesticide makers have made much ado about EWG’s Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce, which assembles federal testing data on many fruits and vegetables and makes it easy for consumers to see which have the most pesticide residues – and which have the least. The industry has ramped up efforts to attack the Guide, with the help, ironically, of a federal grant funded with your tax dollars.

The critics claim that the Guide’s “Dirty Dozen” list discourages people from eating adequate amounts of fresh produce, arguing that none of the levels of pesticide detected are deemed unsafe by the Environmental Protection Agency. Most consumers, of course, understand perfectly well that the Shoppers Guide is a just that – a handy guide. If they are concerned about pesticide residues, it provides a concise summary of the data, which, as the industry points out, is “long and somewhat cumbersome.” And EWG makes a point of encouraging everyone to eat more fruits and vegetables, not less.

What conventional growers and their pesticide industry allies don’t like to focus on is what’s been happening with long-term trends in pesticide residues. What the data shows is that overall, the percentage of samples on which pesticides are detected has been increasing ­– from 42 percent prior to the Shopper’s Guide to more than 70 percent in 2008.

The chart below shows the overall rate of pesticide detections from 1994 to 2008. The red portion of the bar at the bottom reflects samples that carried 4 or more pesticide residues, and the grey portion at the top shows what percentage contained no residue.

There’s a break in the chart between 2002 and 2003. That’s when the US Department of Agriculture changed its sampling procedures. Before 2003, if a pesticide decomposed into multiple chemicals that were themselves on the list to be monitored, each one was counted as a separate “exposure.” But in 2003, USDA began counting the original pesticide and its breakdown offspring as just a single exposure. In effect, it changed its counting method to make the numbers smaller – at a time when pesticide formulas were getting more complex.

Despite what was (arguably) a bit of accounting sleight-of-hand, the number of different residues found on fruits and vegetables continued to rise. In fact, from the time the Shopper’s Guide made its debut in 2003 to 2008, the number of samples carrying two or more residues doubled, and the number showing four or more almost tripled. In 2003, one of every three samples contained at least one pesticide residue, and one of every 12 contained several. By 2008, nearly eight of every 10 samples contained at least one, and one in six contained four or more. The trend is similar for samples with two or three residues. The only category that shrank was samples with only one residue.

During the life of the Shopper’s Guide, in other words, your odds of being exposed to pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables have almost doubled, and your odds of being exposed to multiple pesticides have more than doubled.

Not only that, but as the next graphic shows, from 1994 to 2008 the number of samples with residues exceeding the legal limits set by EPA went up tenfold. In other words, there is a ten times greater chance that the produce you eat today is carrying residue levels EPA deems risky. Again, this is despite the fact that fewer pesticide formulations are being monitored, and more produce is being grown organically.

Why are growers applying more pesticides to fruit and vegetable crops? Farm consolidation is likely part of the reason. As this 2007 data from USDA’s Agricultural Resource Management Survey shows, more than 87 percent of the nation’s fruits and vegetables came from just 8 percent of the farms, which owned 79 percent of the cropland.  By contrast, 68 percent of the farms, combined, own only 4 percent of the land and grow less than 1 percent of the crops.

The reason is that you simply can’t raise fruits and vegetables on mega-farms profitably without using pesticides to lower labor costs. Pesticides, while expensive, are cheaper than farm workers – even when they’re underpaid. Couple this with weak regulations that simply require pesticide users to “read the label,” a lack of compliance monitoring and generous liability protections for most uses, the need to ship produce great distances to consumers, and you have an environment where larding on more pesticide always makes economic sense.

Give the consumers some credit

The more you look at the data, the more you see the real problem with US fruit and vegetable consumption. Consumers are opting for produce that is chemical-free while industrial agriculture is applying increasingly complex chemicals to its crops and ever-increasing amounts of residues are going home on its fruits and vegetables. While EPA says those residues are “safe,” growing numbers of consumers are choosing to avoid them when they can.

That consumer mistrust is largely a product of pesticides’ history. Pesticide makers (and the government) use testing regimes aimed at ensuring that their products won’t kill people immediately, but they pay scant attention to potential long-term environmental and health effects. The policy is, basically, “wait to see what happens.” Inevitably, problems eventually do show up and then tend to attract substantial publicity. Testing new chemicals on your customers is not a strong marketing strategy, but it is one the industry has relied on for more than 60 years.

It was, after all, weak regulation of agricultural chemicals that led Rachel Carson to write Silent Spring, triggering the modern environmental movement more than 60 years ago. And new concerns keep cropping up. Pesticides are under scrutiny for their effects on monarch butterfly populations and bees. They have been linked to birth defects (repeatedly) and numerous adulthealth problems. And that’s just in the last few years.

When your product is designed to kill, your marketing is based on a “trust us” mentality, and your record of pursuing profits over consumer interests is so dismal that you scare your customers, business-as-usual is not likely to be a good strategy – no matter how many taxpayer dollars you throw at it.

People don’t refuse to eat vegetables because of the Shopper’s Guide. If they refuse at all, it’s because they don’t want to eat vegetables from people they don’t trust. Big Ag constantly defends mega-farm, chemical-intensive farming methods and downplays the never-ending river of studies that show the dangers of pesticide exposure. Growers and pesticide makers should spend their money to address the real problems, rather than spending taxpayer dollars on marketing campaigns that pretend those problems don’t exist and on attacking simple consumer information tools. They should rethink their testing programs and work with the EPA to develop a system people can have faith in. They should look at how pesticides are applied and push for monitoring systems that ensure accountability and result in produce that consumers actually want. They should look at their production models and change to farm more sustainably, with less chemical dependence.

Consumers’ interest is what makes the Shopper’s Guide so popular; the Shopper’s Guide doesn’t drive consumer interest. EWG’s message is so widely heard because it gives consumers what they want. Big Ag should try that.