I wonder what kind of reaction I would get from the Sun City crowd that goes to Costco every Saturday for the free sample buffet. Would they look at the chips and toss them, or eat them and walk away? How many would take the time to listen to me talk about the poisonous nature of the very product that so many people consume nearly everyday? How many would listen, read my propaganda, and be interested enough to learn more? How many would toss the chips? How many would not care?
That is the problem with the food supply in America today, and well, with Americans. People here have this belief that all of the foods that are available to them in the supermarket are wholesome, and good for them. The belief that all the convenience products that literally line the shelves of the local market are made using techniques in their manufacture that allow the final product to be nutritious and better than freshly made. And lastly, there is this overall belief that the foods in the grocers are safe, have no residual levels of toxic pesticides and herbicide, are grown in soils with adequate mineral content, and generally are safe, healthy and nutritious. Americans believe that their government and two of the organizations tasked with protecting them, the FDA and USDA, are filled with responsible people and are doing their jobs to the best of their abilities and serving the public interest.
How far the truth is from this belief.
In 2010 the Congress passed the Food Modernization Act, which has some rather specific rules about how food should be grown and harvested. With the stated objective of reducing food borne illnesses within the United States. This bill basically is designed to limit the production of fresh produce. There is no other explanation for all the rules and regulations that are getting ready to come on line and will apply to this very select industry. Sure, there have been problems in the past, quite a number of bacterial contamination events of processed salad ingredients have come to light and have resulted in recalls, illnesses, and a couple of deaths. However the FDA and USDA seem to be going out of their way to single out and harass businesses that want to produce, well, fresh produce.
To cognizant thinking Americans that hear about all these new regulations it would seem as though the FDA is actively trying to reduce the risk to their health. On average, each year 23 deaths are attributable to food borne illnesses transmitted through fresh produce in an average of 1,500 events nationally. I think that there is room for improvement. Each year there are on average 6,300 deaths attributable to food borne illnesses from contaminated meat and processed food in an average of over 38,940 events annually. These are CDC figures for the last 10 years, averaged of course.
Why doesn't the FDA feel that these categories of processed foods need more rules?
In the last 10 years over a hundred thousand people each year have been killed from drug interactions, poorly tested drugs, and misuse or using specific drugs for treatments not approved for that specific drug. The FDA knows that this is a problem and has taken the top drug manufacturers to court and won fines of over 18 billion dollars from the top 8 drug companies for falsifying testing results, promoting the use of specific drugs for diseases the drug is not approved for, bribery, lying to federal investigators and other crimes against Americans.
Why doesn't the FDA feel that drug companies need more rules?
Research is just now being done on long term feeding of Genetically Modified foods. The FDA never required ANY long term feeding studies of any GM food. The FDA has never required an EPA report on the impact of growing GM foods in the wild where their pollen could infect indigenous populations and cultivated farms of non GM foods. Just in the last six months specific laboratory evidence of GM foods in long term feeding of mammals shows definitive increases in cancer and tumors as well as degradation of liver, kidney, brain and neurological systems. Commercial cultivation of GM plants has shown that the GM population cannot be contained and it is spreading to the native populations and destroying any hope of anyone ever being able to eat any non GM foods ever again.
Why doesn't the FDA see GM plants as threats to the health of Americans?
So what do we do about this. How do we as responsible adults try to get the word out to the masses that what we as Americans think is happening with our protection, is not happening. How indeed? Maybe I will head over to Costco this weekend. A couple weeks ago I went to Safeway and stood in the produce section and asked the produce manager if he knew for sure that the squash he was selling was nonGM and when he could not, I asked him if that was because Safeway had donated three quarters of a million dollars to the defeat GM labeling law in California and therefore wanted to keep the American public from knowing the truth about the food they sold. They didn't throw me out, and they were pretty nice to me as they asked me to leave. But then we had quite a crowd watching. Maybe that's how we can get the word out.
I know Costco, but senior buffet is I am not sure. We have GM food here in Ukraine, all food has label says GM. People buy it, some time only thing on shelfs.
ReplyDeleteAna, senior buffet refers to the practice of giving samples of various products by the store. Costco regularly gives out samples on weekends of 20 or 30 different foods. Soooooooo, it is a favorite pasttime of many people to just go there for lunch or dinner, and just walk around and sample all the free food. We call it the "Senior Buffet" I dated a young woman in Austin for awhile and once she told me she would take me out to dinner, we did the senior buffet at Whole Foods, a big natural food store in America. It was weird!! Keep Healthy Ana, stay away from GM, at least there you know what you are eating, we don't have GM labeling here.
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