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Good Food, Good Life, Part ll

          cross-posted at annoyedomnivore.wordpress.comNestle is still at it.  The Swiss Multinational corporation has been trying to gain essential control over the water from Oxbow Springs, near the...

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A Quiet Revolution

           cross-posted at annoyedomnivore.wordpress.comI’m still chuckling over the Carl’s Jr. television ads featuring gorgeous women devouring monstrous hamburgers while the words...

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Smoke and Mirrors - Sustainable Palm Oil

        cross-posted at annoyedomnivore.wordpress.comOn the heels of writing about how the food industry is suddenly responding to consumer demand that our food supply be sustainable, I stumbled upon...

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The Big Four vs. The Rest of Us

The Big Four vs. The Rest of Us Posted on March 4, 2015    by Annoyed OmnivoreThere’s still about a month left for the public and industry to weigh in, but the 8th edition of the Dietary Guidelines for...

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Spawn of Monsanto

      cross-posted at annoyedomnivore.wordpress.comLoblolly sounds as though it’s a name of a quaint little village in Ireland, but it’s actually an important tree species in the U.S., and is being...

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Tom Udall Gets It Wrong

         cross-posted at annoyedomnivore.wordpress.comThere are currently more than 80,000 chemicals available for purchase and use in the U.S. today that have never been tested for potential toxic...

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A Simple Reform

     cross-posted at annoyedomnivore.wordpress.comIn accordance with the definition of capitalism, we will constantly be doing battle with private industry, bent only the accumulation of profit, in...

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Three Lies

It is said that if you repeat a thing often enough people will believe in its veracity.  There are three stances the biotech industry continues to inculcate, only one of which could be true, except...

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Soda Wars

        cross-posted at annoyedomnivore.wordpress.comAccording to the playbook on how to reduce tobacco use in this country, warning labels and taxes work.  In 1965, Congress enacted the Federal...

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"Nafta on Steroids"

        cross-posted at annoyedomnivore.wordpress.comThe Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement has once again reared its ugly head as it appears to be ready for passage.  President Obama...

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Dissident Voices

       cross-posted at annoyedomnivore.wordpress.comA Pew Research Center poll conducted earlier this year revealed differences between what ordinary citizens believe and how those beliefs are in...

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Argentina vs. Monsanto

         cross-posted at annoyedomnivore.wordpress.comThe recent announcement by the World Health Organization concerning the carcinogenic nature of glyphosate, the chief component of Monsanto’s weed...

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Dirty Water – The Use of Oil Production Wastewater to Irrigate California Crops

               cross-posted at annoyedomnivore.wordpress.comFor two decades farmers in California’s Central Valley have been buying water from the Chevron Kern River oil field, which is currently the...

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Chipotle's-Giving People What They Want

              cross-posted at annoyedomnivore.wordpress.comChipotle’s recent announcement that they were working on ways to eliminate GMOs from their food, which is in accordance with their historic...

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We Just Don't Know

            cross-posted at annoyedomnivore.wordpress.comFor those people who trot out the argument that there have been no studies demonstrating a link between the consumption of GMOs and health...

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How the Demise of Agribusiness Would Save us All

      cross-posted at annoyedomnivore.wordpress.comA new study, The Large Potential of local Croplands to Meet Food Demand in the United States, was recently conducted by Professor Elliott Campbell of...

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The FRESHER Act

               cross-posted at annoyedomnivore.wordpress.comThe Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released a report Congress commissioned in 2010 to study the impact of fracking on...

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Big, Fat Chickens

You can walk into any large grocery store and buy a factory raised whole chicken for about $1.50 a pound.  Chickens raised on sustainable local farms currently cost close to $3.00 a pound, or more if...

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The Irrationality of Increased Pesticide Use

           cross-posted at annoyedomnivore.wordpress.com“The Earth our home, is beginning to look like an immense pile of filth…The deterioration of the environment and of society affects the most...

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A Renewed Argument Against Factory Beef

In 1871, Colonel R. I. Dodge, when traveling along the Arkansas River, came upon a herd of bison that he measured to be 25 miles wide and 50 miles long.  It has been estimated that 20 to 30 million...

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The Potential of Modernizing the Safety Assessment of GMOs

On July 2 of this year, President Obama issued a bulletin called “Improving Transparency and Ensuring Continued Safety in Biotechnology.” It’s a seemingly benign document, but the bulletin calls for...

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Two Reasons to Avoid Imported Seafood

It’s estimated that 86% of the seafood consumed by Americans is imported, and most of that comes from China, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam, and is largely farmed.  It has long been established that...

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A Hershey’s Kiss and the Power of the Marketplace

We as consumers, collectively, have a great deal of power to affect change in the marketplace, albeit with incremental steps.  A campaign to force General Mills to produce Cheerios cereal without the...

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Coca-Cola Wants You to Exercise. A Lot.

Since the late 1990s the amount of full calorie soda consumed by the average American has dropped 25%.  That’s a huge decline, most assuredly brought about by increased awareness that soda pop plays a...

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Don’t Worry. (about the DARK Act) Be Happy.

The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015, or the Deny Americans the Right to Know (DARK) Act, has been milling about for some time now and recently passed through the House Agriculture...

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No More Whole Wheat Wiener Wraps!

Harry Truman was responsible for the introduction of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) in 1946.  The goal was two-fold; to manage farm surpluses and feed school children.  As he signed the...

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You Are What Your Grandmother Ate

A 2006 study conducted by researchers at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute provided fascinating evidence that the diet of one’s grandmother decidedly affects the health of her...

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An Emergent Resistance Against the Proliferation of GMOs

There have been an unusual number of decisions and statements made over the last few weeks that frame genetically modified crops in a negative light.  The State of California recently announced plans...

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Food Waste in America

Our city government provides a service which allows food waste to be deposited in yard debris containers which are subsequently picked up once a week.  A consequence of this is that our garbage has...

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Nestle v. Cascade Locks, Part lll

In 2008, Nestle began a campaign to gain essential control over the water at Oxbow Springs near the town of Cascade Locks, a small village in the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon.  It continues in its...

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The State Policy Network, ALEC and the TPP

Thomas Roe (1927-2000) was a businessman from South Carolina who, at the urging of Ronald Reagan, established the State Policy Network (SPN) in 1992.  The SPN, philosophically opposed to the federal...

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How The Intractability of the Meat Industry Hurts Us All

Every five years the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services appoints a committee of ten to fifteen nutrition experts to revamp the U.S. Dietary Guidelines.  This...

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How Consumer Demand Can Shape an Industry

Just this week Subway Restaurants announced that by March 2016 they will offer meals made with antibiotic-free chicken.  A full phase in is expected within two to three years, and they’re promising...

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Fruit Cake

No time to do anything at all this week, but at least I got to my fruitcakes.  My mother made them always, and one of the most fabulous things I remember is my mother’s banana bread.  I’ve never been...

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A Renewed Call For a Tax on Sweetened Drinks

The facts concerning the consumption of sweetened drinks are in and they’re solid.  Drinking soda or any other sugary drink is a leading cause of obesity, particularly in children, and contributes to...

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UPOV 91 – A Real Threat to Sustainable Agriculture

The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, or UPOV (and colloquially known as “The Monsanto Law” in South America), was initially established in 1961 and was originally...

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Climate Change, Terrorism and GMOs

“If we are going to see an increase in drought, flood and extreme weather disturbances as a result of climate change, what that means is that people all over the world are going to be fighting over...

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The (Real) Green Revolution

Just as I believe that no one benefits from Republican Party policies but rich white men, so too do I think that proponents of GMO crops are either paid by Big Ag to vilify anyone questioning the value...

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Paris Climate Talks and the Elephant in the Room

The front page of Le Monde on Wednesday showed a picture of President Obama shaking hands with Bill Gates during the United Nations Conference on Climate Change.   As the owner of 500,000 shares of...

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Food Waste in America – An Update

As a retired chef, I currently work in a regional grocery chain that offers a mix of organic and conventional foods.  They continue to establish community connections and have actually become the main...

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United Soya Republic

In December 2003 Syngenta triumphantly labeled the countries of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay as the United Soya Republic.  At this point, Big Ag had effectively taken control of...

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Be A Climatarian!

I asked a co-worker what she and her boyfriend had planned for Christmas Day.  As we work in a store that makes hundreds of connections with local farmers and ranchers while also providing organic...

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175 More Reasons to Avoid Processed Food

Most of us are aware of the dangers of Bisphenol A (BPA), which is found in most food wrappers and tin cans.  The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has stated that BPA can cause “altered...

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Just Say No to Farmed Salmon

I have long eschewed eating farmed salmon, most of which is Atlantic salmon, for a variety of health reasons.  Among them are that farmed salmon have seven times the levels of PCB’s as wild salmon, 30...

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Combating an Obesogenic Environment

The World Health Organization (WHO) released a report last week that found that 41 million children around the world “under the age of five were either overweight or obese.” The report also found that...

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Hillary Clinton and Monsanto

The Iowa caucuses revealed more than who the front runners might be in the upcoming presidential race.  In a meeting of Iowa’s Tri-County Democrats, there existed a rather large block of women who had...

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The Long Arm of the Biotech Industry

On May 20, 2014, Jackson County Oregon voters approved a ban on genetically engineered organisms.  A similar ban was approved in nearby Josephine County.  Both measures were counter to a previous state...

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How to Change to a Healthier Diet For $1.50 a Day

Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, states simply that “eating is a political act.” He, along with Marion Nestle, the author of Food Politics, believes that Wall Street controls the food...

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The DARK Act, Part Two

The DARK Act (the Deny Americans the Right to Know or, officially and duplicitously known as The Safe and Affordable Food Labeling Act of 2015) is back.  It’s an industry backed bill, of course, one...

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Hood River County Defeats Nestle

Since 2008 Nestle has waged a battle in Cascade Locks, Oregon for control over the rights to the water of Oxbow Springs.  As I had reported first in 2013 and then in February of 2015 and September of...

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