Home gardening as a smart response to future food shortages and rising prices

Ellen LaConte on Countercurrents.org “Garden As If Your Life Depended On It, Because It Will”:

“Spring has sprung—at least south of the northern tier of states where snow still has a ban on it—and the grass has ‘riz. And so has the price of most foods, which is particularly devastating just now when so many Americans are unemployed, underemployed, retired or retiring, on declining or fixed incomes and are having to choose between paying their mortgages, credit card bills, car payments, and medical and utility bills and eating enough and healthily. Many are eating more fast food, prepared foods, junk food—all of which are also becoming more expensive—or less food.

In some American towns, and not just impoverished backwaters, as many as 30 percent of residents can’t afford to feed themselves and their families sufficiently, let alone nutritiously. Here in the Piedmont Triad of North Carolina where I live it’s 25 percent. Across the country one out of six of the elderly suffers from malnutrition and hunger. And the number of children served one or two of their heartiest, healthiest meals by their schools grows annually as the number of them living at poverty levels tops twenty percent. Thirty-seven million Americans rely on food banks that now routinely sport half-empty shelves and report near-empty bank accounts. And this is a prosperous nation!

Organic group takes pre-emptive court action against Monsanto patent claims

Barry Estabrook, from Politics of the Plate blog:

“Tearing a page out of Monsanto Co.’s own playbook, the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), an advocacy group whose mandate is to represent the public’s interest in the patent system, filed suit on behalf of 60 organic farmers, small farm organizations, and seed businesses this week against the litigious agrichemical and GMO-seed giant.

In a press release, PUBPAT said, “The organic plaintiffs were forced to sue preemptively to protect themselves from being accused of patent infringement should their crops ever become contaminated by Monsanto’s genetically modified seed.” PUBPAT is asking the federal court in Manhattan to declare that if organic farmers’ crops are ever contaminated by Monsanto’s GMO seed, they need not fear also being accused of patent infringement.

Meat Glue — industry secret exposed

Miriam Kresh, from Green Prophet.com:

Care for a slab of Frankenstein steak? Just glue meat scraps together and serve ‘em up, hot. Side of blood clots, optional. Photo via Green Prophet.com

“The white powder sold by the kilo, above, is the meat industry’s dirty little secret. It’s “meat glue.” It makes pieces of beef, lamb, chicken or fish that would normally be thrown out stick together so closely that it looks like a solid piece of meat. See also our posts on Israel’s frozen fish scandal and how garlic from China is scary stuff.

What’s with the mania for meat?

Katrina Onstad from The Globe and Mail.com

“I’m not sure how it happened, but I now live in the Meat Unpacking District.

At the north end of my Toronto street are two sister restaurants, the Black Hoof and the recently-closed-but-soon-to-reopen Hoof Café. True to their names, the former is renowned for its “off-cut-centric” menu and pig-head tacos; the latter’s claim to fame was its “love letters,” envelopes of beef tongue and pork-belly pastrami. Walk east and there’s a porchetta sandwich shop. Further south is the home of the grass-fed gourmet burger, which isn’t far from the organic butcher shop. All this hacking and cleaving is greeted with long queues, critical accolades and rapturous testimony on Chowhound.

If I’m unnerved that my neighbourhood, once known for its park, is now known for flesh, it may be because I generally don’t eat things with eyes. This, by the way, does not mean that I am typing on a hemp keyboard with hands used mostly for pious finger pointing. In other words: Sometimes I eat fish.

Vaccination and forced child removal

From Vaccine Epidemic.com:

Imagine this. You are an upstanding member of your community. You have a healthy, thriving daughter with a physical disability who is homeschooled. At age 13, she declares that she wants to attend public school. Your daughter is compelled to receive all vaccines mandated by your home state as a requirement for school admission. She is given a “catch up schedule” of shots. Your daughter suffers what appears to be post-vaccinal encephalitis, a serious adverse reaction to her vaccines. Among other developments, her personality changes. She is struggling with emotions and mood. She is very unhappy.

You voluntarily seek help from a local children’s center that helps families with troubled children. As part of the treatment plan, she is prescribed Risperdal, a psychotropic drug. The medication makes things worse. Your daughter is still unhappy, and now she is violent.

Raw milk, Michael Schmidt at Total Health Show in Toronto, April 8-10

Michael Schmidt (DURHAM, ONTARIO)

Michael Schmidt has a master’s degree in agriculture and has been a biodynamic farmer for over 33 years. Born in Germany, he came to Canada in 1983 and has been instrumental in massive changes towards the awareness of the cultural importance of agriculture. He is leading the fierce battle to legalize raw milk in Canada, and founded Ontar Bio Organic Farm Products which later became a Farmer-owned Co-Op. He has been making headline news across Canada and has received international recognition for his efforts to legalize raw milk. www.glencoltonfarms.com Visit Michael’s booth in the Farmers Market area.

Do We Have a Total War on Health?

Saturday 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM, 205

Michael Schmidt has become a symbol of non-violent resistance around the world for his determination to challenge the powers of authority. The fierce battle against corrupt authorities and corporate control has just begun. As a scholar of Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy and Steiner, Michael continues to question the legitimacy of regulators who are infringing on our individual rights to nourish, and heal ourselves. He looks far beyond the current struggle and will try to put this battle into the spiritual context of the evolution of mankind. This lecture will put into context the grave dangers we are facing if we do not find our strength through cooperation, coalition building and trust into the future.  Learn more

Choosing raw milk is not a big deal in most of the world outside America

David E. Gumpert on The Complete Patient blog:

Holy cow in India. Photo via The Complete Patient blog.

“…Right after my trip through the Myanmar health system last week, I made a stop at a Buddhist center on the outskirts of Yangon, the country’s largest city. I had been referred to the center by some American friends, and indeed, the nun who showed me around was an American-born woman who has been there on-and-off for the last five  years. As we stood on an outdoor second-floor landing, she pointed out several neighboring structures in this semi-rural area. A small square building housed a neighborhood health-care center. A warehouse-like structure was a tobacco-processing plant. And a barn-like structure…well, once she pointed it out to me, I could see a number of cows inside.

Artisan raw milk cheese safe for now from FDA meddling with 60-day rule

From Barry Estabrook at Politics of the Plate.com

“Earlier this year, cheese lovers who view raw milk as a sacred cow, feared that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) planned to sharply limit or even ban the manufacture and sale of raw milk cheese. It would have been a loss not only for connoisseurs, but for anyone who cares about rural economies and sustainable food systems. Artisan cheese is a big part of the solution. Fortunately, it appears that the fears were exaggerated.

The role played  by artisan cheese making in rural renewal was driven home to me recently when I chatted with Angela Miller, a New York literary agent who, with her architect husband Russel Glover, bought Consider Bardwell Farm in 2000. Although it has prospered as Vermont’s first dairy cooperative in the mid 1800s, the farm had suffered the fate of many once-prosperous New England dairies. For a decade prior to Miller’s purchase, it had been defunct, its barns and outbuildings sitting empty, its fields ungrazed. There was talk of converting the land into a military training ground.

15 things pasteurization kills in milk

by Mark McAfee, CEO, Organic Pastures Dairy, from Health Impact News Daily:

There are two raw milks in America: one for “people” and one for the “pasteurizer.” Raw milk meant for people is clean, pure, comes from cows on green pastures, and is regulated on a state-by-state basis. Raw milk for the pasteurizer is regulated by the FDA under the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO) and can be filled with pathogenic bacteria. Raw milk intended for pasteurization is commingled from many confinement dairies and is never tested for pathogens. Pasteurization does not create clean milk; it just kills filthy milk.

The FDA sits at the very top of the PMO food chain system and reigns as the military dictator over the rules and regulations of the PMO. Yes, they wear military uniforms, and yes, they are the absolute last word at the NCIMS (National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments, the organization that runs the PMO). So I do not exaggerate when I use the term “military dictatorship.” No one moves or breathes or thinks a thought without FDA approval when it comes to pasteurized milk and its regulation.

Dairy goat herd for sale in Ontario

Gordon Watson sent us this:

Hello, If you know of anyone who is interested in this herd would you please pass along my contact information.

This herd is currently at components 5%.

240 fresh milking does

70 yearlings bred for August freshening