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Move along…nothing to see here, folks….
….it’s just those fun folks at Monsanto messing with our food, again. The USDA reports Genetically Modified wheat has been found on an Oregon pasture. That’s against the law, but the USDA and the FDA tell us not to worry….GM produce is perfectly safe. However, the Japanese apparently are not buying it….literally. http://cnsnews.com/news/article/protests-grow-amid-discovery-genetically-modified-us-wheat
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We’re in the best of hands….2 & 3…
….two more articles from our old friend Dr. Joseph Mercola (well, I don’t know him but he’s never complained about all the stuff I steal from him so he must be a friend). Starting again: to follow up two current threads: can we trust Big Government and the people who supply our food and can we work with Europe to help protect us. First, when it comes to Europe, guess who’s gotten there before us? Oh, you must have been paying attention. There’s now an international do-gooder association that is going to protect us. Hard to find just who’s behind this group but Dr. Mercola did the digging and they include (surprise!)…
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We’re in the best of hands….
….a friend opined the other day that I was going a little far in my rants about Big Government. He conceded the abuses but he said he’d rather have the safety of federal inspections than the alternative. Turns out he…and we…have neither. http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2530619#.UaTHlkWFi0w.twitter Not to belabor the point: know your farmer and know his processor. Yes, all our meat is USDA-inspected but what really counts is the Thistle Hill label. Incidentally, we don’t ship our meat but if you contact us we’ll put you in touch with a reputable supplier near you. We also have been impressed with the meat offered on the internet by US Wellness.
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Big Ag’s balanced diet….
…with thanks to Big Government. We’ve dealt with this before, but here’s a good roundup on the issue. Check out just a partial list of how much Big Ag spends winning friends and influencing Washington. This is just the money they spend on your lawmakers and the bureaucrats…..doesn’t count the money they spend “influencing” scientists. http://paleodietlifestyle.com/fallacy-of-balanced-diet/
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Can we learn from the Europeans….
….one of our readers thinks so, though he asks to remain anonymous because he works for you-know-who. Here’s the link: http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Regulation/US-review-gleans-ideas-from-European-food-safety-reforms My own jaded view is that this becomes one more weapon to beat up on the little guy. If Europeans experience fewer food-related illnesses, I suspect it’s not because of bureaucratic efficiency. Everything there, from farms to processing, operates on a much smaller scale. It’s the huge packing houses and the factory farms in the United States that cause our problems. And a corrupt system that keeps us looking the “other” way. Further, one-size agricultural rules are too often written in the bowels of Big Ag and Big…
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Now she tells us….
….Kathleen Merrigan, who recently resigned as Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, created a bit of a stir this week when she said the latest law the government passed to “protect” us…..has the potential to transform and even destroy small and medium sized farms. Of course, the law has a high-sounding name, (see George Orwell), the Food Safety Modernization Act. But any bill that’s put together by Big Ag and Big Government is bound to be not only bad for small farms, but consumers. The basic idea is to make the requirements so stringent and so expensive that only mass producers with their chemical warehouses can afford them. Apparently there’s a lot of…
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Laugh or cry….
….or both. Hard to decide. Those folks at the guvmint who are “here to help you” are giving meat labels a “face lift”. The reporter passes on the assurance that this is intended to protect us unsuspecting consumers. The change: the labels on steaks will be changed to designate the country of origin and the country of slaughter. That’s better. Not what the animal was fed of course. Certainly not whether it’s been raised on genetically modified grain. Or what they injected it with or sprayed on it. Nothing at all on that package of hamburger. Of course, no label would be large enough to list all the countries that…
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The magic of proper nutrition….
….I don’t know why I keep being surprised because it seems like I come across a story at least once a week detailing the healing power of the right food. We certainly have noticed that the aches and pains associated with aging have dropped away in recent years but that’s nothing compared to the “cures” we keep reading about. Here’s one that we discovered this morning: http://www.thepointmag.com/2012/essays/plea-human-food
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Dare we hope….
….we saw sometime back that fast-food giant McDonald’s was having trouble maintaining its spectacular growth. Apparently all the fast food chains are “flat” or even down a little except for their breakfasts. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the economy…and not common sense….got people eating more healthfully? http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/05/08/the-new-normal-for-fast-food-price-cuts-and-stagnant-sales/?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsFifth
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A warning about Distillers Grain….
….Distillers Grain, or “DG”, has become a popular feed supplement. The ethanol boom has left a lot of DG as a by-product, it’s relatively cheap, and the drought has forced cattlemen to look for something to help with their parched fields. But we’re also aware that some grass fed breeders, even some of the Big Names, have been using distillers grain all along, to fatten their animals. That’s not only a “no-no” in grass fed protocols but it’s an unhealthy practice. Unhealthy for cows and humans alike. Here’s just one report on the subject: http://tinyurl.com/btyhc6j Fifteen years ago, when I was raising Angus conventionally, I tried Distillers Grain at the suggestion of…