Food Inc

Last night Larry and I watched a really interesting and disturbing film called Food Inc. You may have heard of it, maybe not. But to me it is a film that all Americans needs to watch. This film shows the raw truth about how our food supply comes to us and what the “real price” is for such food.

I’m sure many of you know that since our oldest son, Matthew, was diagnosed with a form of autism (Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified), Larry and I have worked very hard to determine a way to recover him. We found biomedical interventions that revolve around detoxifying his body and environment, and low and behold, those interventions have worked. So, where does that leave us? It leaves us delving deeper and deeper into the world of toxins and how they are getting into our children and us. That has then pushed us to realize that dangerous toxins and bacteria are invading our food supply leaving us with diseased foods that have little to no real nutritional value and food factory conditions that leave the product (animals and vegetables), the factory workers, and the environment in damaged and dangerous states.

I urge you to watch Food Inc. and learn more about what I’m about to tell you. Check out their website and begin to “vote with your dollars.”

I think some of the most disturbing information that came from the movie has to do with the “business” of food supply. It really is just a commodity. One that is subsidized to the hilt by our government and one that leaves little room for safe, healthy food. There was a very interesting sequence in the film which discussed how E. coli was not present in our food supply until “we” started to feed cattle corn. Beef cattle just were not made by nature to eat and digest corn. What ends up happening, in my rudimentary explanation, is the cows many stomachs become overly acidic and E. coli thrives. This acidic condition will kill the cow eventually, but they are slaughtered before the die! Does the impact of that sink in? They are killed BEFORE they would die as a result of their feeding practice. That seems huge to me. But another interesting point was brought up. If those same cows are simply switched to being grass fed, for a mere FIVE days, 85% of the E. coli in their system will be eliminated. And it should be noted that if one cow has E. coli the other cattle in the feed lot with get it too. This is because the cattle are packed into the feed lots so tightly they have little room to do more than stand, and becuase of this, they often stand ankle deep in their own feces, and the feces of the diseased cattle.

This doesn’t just effect the cattle, but also the slaughter house worker. As the cattle are left in such disgraceful conditions they become covered with feces, and as they are slaughtered at a very high rate the workers become covered in blood, feces and urine! Many of the workers begin to develop health issues of their own.

And just how does the E. coli get into our spinach and tomatoes? Well, it is simple really. The diseased cows leave behind large amounts of feces which enters the ground water as run off and that water is then used to irrigate the crops. Resulting in infected vegetable life!

You may be saying to yourself, “well I don’t really eat that much beef, I’m more of a chicken person myself.” That doesn’t seem to prove to be any better. And it may be worse. There are only a handful of chicken producers in the country producing the majority of the nations chicken products. Most of these producers have farmers that are required to raise chickens in very specific ways. The typical way is to keep chickens in complete darkness for the full 49 days of their lives. It used to take chickens about 3 months to grow to full size, but somehow science has “figured out” a way to “grow” them faster, with larger breasts. These chickens grow so quickly that their internal organs and bone structure can not keep up and most of these chickens can not take more than a few steps without needing to rest. And they NEVER see the light of day. This is to make it easier for the workers to gather them for processing!

You may think it is time to be a vegetarian, and I can understand that desire. But the corporate involvement does not stop there. I’ll not mention the company, but there is just ONE, that owns the patent rights to about 90% o all soybeans grown in the US. These soybeans are genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and this controlling company owns the rights to them. What that means is that the farmers are not allowed to keep their seeds from year to year and replant, instead they must buy the seeds from the company each year. This company has put small farmers out of business by accusing them of “stealing” the seeds by cleaning and reusing the seeds each year. The farmers spend thousands of dollars trying to defend themselves and even if they are not guilty many must settle with the company because the court costs are too high for them to survive. The company has them where they want them. And the company has the government where they want them too.

The FDA and many of these large companies have several people in common. Often “bigwigs” in the companies will take jobs at the FDA and vice versa. Some actually end up leaving the FDA after a period to go back to the corporations. They are certainly in bed with each other, and then we, the consumer, end up paying the price.

Please go watch the film, and start making choices that will change the course of America’s food stuff.