Not only does he drink, he also smokes

The latest from that Michael Schmidt:

“Misinformation, disinformation and outright lies are what our conventional food system runs on.”

“As the new film, Organic Rising, created by Pulitzer Prize and Emmy award-winning filmmaker, Anthony Suau, points out – today’s food crisis is the civil rights movement of our time….”

From Christina Sarich, at Natural Society:

“Organic farming and gardening clearly isn’t just the old-timers way any more. It’s the way of a sustainable world. Younger farmers are coming into the fray more so than at any other time in our history except the 1920s, largely in response to our dilapidated and corrupt agricultural system.

Israel bans water fluoridation

From Douglas Main, in Newsweek:

“On Tuesday of this week (Aug. 26), Israel officially stopped adding fluoride to its water supplies. The decision has “been lauded by various rights groups, but criticized by many in the medical and dental communities as a serious mistake,” as the Times of Israel put it.

The tasteless, colorless chemical is put into water for the purpose of reducing cavities, but critics say that it amounts to mass medication, and forces people to consume the substance whether they want to or not….”

A right relationship to sentient beings — humane lives for our farm animals

Mother cow with newborn calf at Glencolton Farms. Photos by Michael Schmidt.

Driving north last weekend, I was thinking about how, sadly, our society disrespects agricultural animals. In particular, I was reflecting on how our food system manipulates and harms animals in order that people can have soft, tender or plump meat. We grab milk from the grocery store shelf without considering the countless growth hormones given to, and shortened lifespan of, conventional dairy cows.

Raw Milk — from Science to Policy

The Ontario Agricultural College at the University of Guelph will be hosting a one-day symposium on science and policy questions around raw milk on Tuesday April 22, 2014. Academics, industry and government representatives are expected to attend.

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According to the event web page: “The goal of the conference will be to engage in discussions on the need for a structured and transparent process, to ensure that scientific research and knowledge are used to enable effective policy decisions. We are engaging a wide spectrum of global experts, who will use current policies relating to raw and pasteurized milk as the exploratory case study.”

Among the nine presenters will be Durham area farmer and raw milk advocate Michael Schmidt. Here’s Michael’s bio from the presenter page:

Water fluoridation banned in Muskoka

From Collective Evolution:

“The district of Muskoka, Ontario is home to about 60,000 and is a hot spot for Toronto resident cottages. On Monday October 21st, the district voted during a council meeting to end the practice of water fluoridation. With a vote of 10-9 in favor of ending the practice. Muskoka joined a long list of cities ending the detrimental practice of water fluoridation. It is projected that the city will save about $50,000 per year by ending water fluoridation. [1]

Growing awareness about  the dangers of water fluoridation lends a hand to the success we continue to see all over the world with regards to fluoride being removed from the water supplies. Israel, Australia, Canada and the U.S. all feature a number of cities who recently joined, virtually the rest of the world, in removing fluoride from public water.

From cellphones to Fukushima — subnature and spiritual science

Click image to go to Fermi 3 for the source of this and other nuclear cartoons.

“We’ve got 3 reactors, the cores have left the vessel. They’ve burned through the bottom of the vessel. We don’t really know where they are, because the radioactive environment even fries robots that TEPCO’s been trying to send in there. They have been sending very innovative robotic machinery and sensors in there to get a picture, to get a reading, and these things don’t return. We have opened a door to hell that cannot be easily closed – if ever….” — William Boardman, on Reader Supported News.

Although it’s not covered much in the mainstream news, public interest in the problem of continued and possibly increasing radioactive leakage from TEPCO’s Fukushima nuclear disaster has brought a lot of searchers to the Bovine to read past stories we’ve posted on the subject. And of course it’s depressing to just post news of terrible disasters like Fukushima. One has to wonder whether there isn’t something that could be done to improve the situation, rather than just waiting for the released radiation to kill all life in the Pacific ocean, and rain down over North America.

Joel Salatin debates Joseph Mercola on GMOs — Thurs. Nov. 7 live and online

From Kimberly Hartke’s “Hartke is Online” blog:

“The hue and cry over GMO ingredients in our food supply is probably giving the herbicide pushers sour stomachs and sleepless nights. What if organic food activists actually succeed in drumming up enough resistance to genetically modified food to disrupt the market? Would there be a radical exodus from the processed food aisles when all those labels “out” the offending products?

Currently, 64 countries around the world require labeling of genetically engineered foods.  Unlike most other developed countries – such as 15 nations in the European Union, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Russia and even China – the U.S. has no laws requiring labeling of genetically engineered foods. Why is the U.S. so negligent in notifying?

Toronto residents to demand end to water fluoridation at Sept 21st rally

From a news release via Intellihub:

Toronto City Hall. Photo Wikimedia commons

TORONTO — So far 350 people have confirmed their attendance on the Facebook page and over 1,000 have signed the online petition.

Hydrofluorosilicic acid has been added to the community water supply in Toronto for 50 years. It is a toxic waste byproduct of phosphate fertilizer production that is commonly used for fluoridation in The United States and Canada. It has been shown to cause leaching of lead from pipes and is contaminated with arsenic, mercury and radionuclides.

Violent behaviour a result of poor diet?

From Kimberly Hartke at the Weston A. Price Foundation:

Teenage violence. Photo: medindia.net. Click to go there.

WASHINGTON, DC, August 30, 2013– GlobeNewswire — Deficiencies of vitamins A, D, K, B1, B3, B6, B12 and folate, and of minerals iodine, potassium, iron, magnesium, zinc, chromium and manganese can all contribute to mental instability and violent behavior, according to a report published in the Spring 2013 issue of Wise Traditions, the journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

The article, Violent Behavior: A Solution in Plain Sight by Sylvia Onusic, PhD, CNS, LDN, seeks reasons for the increase in violent behavior in America, especially among teenagers.

“We can blame violence on the media and on the breakdown of the home,” says Onusic, “but the fact is that a large number of Americans, living mostly on devitalized processed food, are suffering from malnutrition.  In many cases, this means their brains are starving.”