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This video was emailed to me by the person I buy my raw milk from.
A bit of an eye-opener for anyone who is oblivious to american food. As if I needed another reason to want to live in Japan! My family has been buying organic food for many years now, and to anyone who has ever asked me why; here you go.
Another thing to watch if you’re interested in how messed up the US food industry is, watch the movie Food Inc.
This is kind of a hot-button issue that is full of politics. All I’ll say is that there definitely exists bad practices in the US (and elsewhere!), but these kinds of videos are more than a little misleading.
For what it’s worth, in the US, the term “organic” is very loose, and something certified organic is not necessarily any better than regular produce. I highly recommend local rather than buying “organic,” and purchase meats from local farmers, if you can afford it. Regardless of what you buy, wash your veggies THOROUGHLY. You are more at risk of getting food poisoning from your veggies than meat.
I highly recommend local rather than buying “organic,” and purchase meats from local farmers, if you can afford it.
If you have a place near you that you can do this, than you are lucky. The greater majority of people don’t live near a “local farmer”. As much as I would like to.
And organic isn’t a loose term. You’re thinking of “natural”. “Natural” is a totally loose term. When something is “organic” is has to be certified as such. But anyone can claim their foods are “natural”.There are plenty of other facts about this stuff floating around. Not just this video. It’s something I’ve been interested in for a long while.
Here are a few facts that might help people that are confused on these issues.
Organic is a tricky thing. In order to be USDA certified organic, food must:
1. Must be produced and handled without the use of synthetic chemicals, except where otherwise allowed,
2. With exception to livestock and where otherwise permitted, it may not be produced on land to which any prohibited substance, including synthetic chemicals, have been applied within three years prior to the harvest of agricultural products,
3. Be produced and handled in accordance to a plan agreed upon by the producer and handler, and the certifying agentOr, for easier reading:
– It must be produced without the use of any of the following: conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation– with some exceptions (which are buried in pages of government legalese).
– Meat, poultry*, eggs, and dairy products must come from animals that are not given antibiotics or growth hormones.
– Government-approved certifiers must inspect the farm where the products are grown or raised to make sure the USDA organic rules are being followed.
– Companies that handle or process organic foods before they get to your store must be certified, too.
I should note that poultry in the USA is never given growth hormones even if it is nor organic, and any time you see ‘hormone free’ chicken for sale it is a marketing ploy only. ALL chicken is hormone free.
A few labels.
“100% Organic” means 100% of ingredients must have certified organic origins.
“Organic” means 95% of ingredients must have certified organic origins.
“Made with Organic Ingredients” means at least 70% of ingredients must be organic.
Non-Orangic items that are on the USDA’s list of exceptions that can be used in products that claim “organic”:
cornstarch, water-extracted gum, kelp, unbleached lecithin, pectin, 19 food colorings, two starches, casings for sausages, hops, fish oil, chipotle chili pepper, gelatin, celery powder, dill weed oil, frozen lemon grass, and a sweetener called fructooligosaccharides.Organic certified foods also may not contain GMOs… (Genetically Modified Organisms) however these days, sadly, GMOs are creeping into the most common organic crops (corn and soy) because of cross-pollination. So even though you are supposed to be getting a GMO free food, if it contains corn or soy there is no way of knowing for sure. Some organic farmers have been reporting, after doing state-testing, that their organic corn and soy crops contain over 16% GMO ‘contamination’.
Becoming Organic Certificated by the USDA is quite a process and can be expensive and a lot of red tape. Most smaller farmers cannot afford the time or monetary investment into the organic labeling, even if their produce or livestock is raised in an organic way. When possible, it is a good idea to buy locally (I understand that many cannot, but even cities do have farmer’s markets. I was surprised to find them in Atlanta… they held them in church parking lots every Saturday morning). You can talk to the farmers often and ask how they produce their food. Even if they are not certified organic they may be a much better alternative. I am raising my own chickens on organic soy-free feed, actual free range (by the way, ‘free range’ does not mean what you think it does on food packaging!!), etc. If someone were to buy eggs from me, I could not legally say that they were organic (even though they are).
“Natural” labeling is 100% unregulated and anyone can use it on any product no matter what is in it.
Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.comI remember way back when organic first hit the shelves. Then there was the scandal of eggs that were labeled organic that were just ordinary eggs just labeled that way so they could charge higher prices for them. Hence the regulations. Back then, buying food that was good for you meant paying much higher prices for small quantities and having it taste like cardboard.
I would agree in buying local–there are numerous farmers markets in my area. I feel we all want to eat more healthy but don’t want to get ripped off doing so! If I could raise my own chickens for eggs in my backyard, I would.
It can get so frustrating to try and eat things that are healthy for you. Someone told me about the film ‘Knives and Forks’ [think that’s the title] where it claims that a lot of the physcial ills we suffer is due to our diet and how to correct it.
For me i has been a struggle to try and eat right and I must not be doing it right because I’m hungry all the time.
Being a midwesterner I like to support our local farmers and buy fresh corn, eggs, milk, etc. from them, and their foods taste so much better than store-bought. It’s actually a goal of mine, within the next few years I plan to move out of the city and own a small area of farm land so I can grow most of my own food. 🙂
LadyFirebird, I hear you. So many people take food for granted because it is so easy to get in modern times. It’s easy to forget that such was not always the case, and could be the case again if something truly terrible happened in our world (let us hope that it does not!). So much of our lives are out of our direct control anymore, but food is one of the things we can still try to control, and one of the most important ones since we must all eat of course! It has been possibly the biggest struggle for me to eat in a way that is not only healthy, but affordable, and is environmentally as responsible as possible. It is extremely hard to meet all three of these goals! I am working hard to invest in my small piece of land in order to create much of my own food, but the initial investment in time and money takes a while to build up, and it’s unrealistic to expect everyone (or even most people) to be able to do this, especially those that live in cities. It’s a very complicated issue.
Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.comabsolutely! milk is evil stuff and people just don’t get it. the american media and big corporations have brainwashed everyone in to thinking that you have to get your calcium from cow’s milk. not so.
food is one of my most favorite topics! i could go on forever about how the Standard American Diet is the worst thing that you could do to your body. after all the things i have learned about the food industry and of course what i know about marketing and big business, i have brought myself and my family to eat a raw whole foods (no not the store also known as “Whole Paycheck” lol) plant based diet. some people think this is extreme. what? no milk and neon colored processed foods for the kids? no. my 2 year old’s favorite food is a salad made simply of dark leafy greens (purple colored lettuce is her fav) with apple cider vinegar and flax oil. or a spinach and mango smoothie. my kids have yet to catch a cold, the flu or anything else.
i’m actually trying to come up with some no-fuss super-simple way to educate people about the foods they eat. its really eye opening to people who have no idea.
Just this past year my husband’s and my diets changed radically. We switched from our usual junk food/processed food/whatever was easiest for both of us to throw together after a long day of work diet to simple, balanced meals. We’ve cut out most of our sugar intake, and really cut down on caffeine. It took us a long time to finally commit to making the switch, but now that we have we’ve both lost weight and feel so much healthier. Tonight’s dinner was delicious – simple roasted chicken breast, broccoli, apple sauce, and sugar free jello. So good!
But it is so hard to make that switch. It took my father over a year of telling us how much weight he’d lost and how much better he felt by just changing the way he ate before the hubby and I were ready to make the change. Food can be such an emotional thing for people – changing the way you eat is really, really challenging! It’s a hard habit to break, but I’m proud of myself. 🙂
Our family is making small, but important steps towards eating healthier. My daughter and I consume coconut or almond milk (hubby is not convinced…but I sent him that video just now..hehe) We do not eat at fast food places…and I stay away from as many processed foods as I can. We can’t really afford to go organic, but I have been to Trader Joe’s here a couple of times, and we are getting a Whole Foods store soon–Daydreamer..is it expensive? lol With that nickname, it seems it might be!!
Sugar is still a food I am hooked on. 😛 I know I need to ditch it..but it is so hard!
Our family is making small, but important steps towards eating healthier. My daughter and I consume coconut or almond milk (hubby is not convinced…but I sent him that video just now..hehe) We do not eat at fast food places…and I stay away from as many processed foods as I can. We can’t really afford to go organic, but I have been to Trader Joe’s here a couple of times, and we are getting a Whole Foods store soon–Daydreamer..is it expensive? lol With that nickname, it seems it might be!!
Sugar is still a food I am hooked on. 😛 I know I need to ditch it..but it is so hard!
Yeah, I CANNOT get out of Whole Foods without spending over $100. Even when I go in for a bunch of kale. Okay, yeah, I get tempted by all the wonderful stuff they have but…. yep, way over priced!!
And for sugar… have you tried agave nectar? Or stevia extract? Those both helped me and my entire family (well, except my stubborn sister) to kick the sugar habit!
I love Whole Foods. My brother and I have the expression “it’s always a new experience each time you go there” heh. I love the atmosphere there. My brother lives next to the “home base” of Whole Foods. The thing is massive!
One thing I feel is different about Whole Foods versus say, Sprouts (not sure how wide spread they are) is what is in the food. Sprouts is suppose to be a place to go for better foods. But when you look at some ingredients, you’ll still find the “bad” stuff in some of it. Things like partially hydrogenated oils. While I can’t claim Whole Foods doesn’t have a single item with “the bad stuff” in it, I have yet to pick something up that had it. I’m an obsessive ingredient reader… if I want to buy it, I read the ingredients. But I haven’t bought EVERYTHING in the store heh.
To me, that makes the prices worth it. Especially since most people don’t care to look at the ingredients.I used to eat a lot of bread, a lot of dairy products and quite often fast food as well. Here in Norway most people eat and drink bread and milk for breakfast, for lunch, for supper and mostly dinner containing a lot of milk as well. That`s the kind of food my parents served me from quite an early age. I`ve been depressed several times. I`ve felt like a looser at school, not being able to consentrate, feeling unmotivated and tired all the time. Eventually I was diagnosed with ADHD. For about 5 years ago I started to get problems with my stomach. I thought it would pass and didn`t do anything about it. I did not take my problems seriously before 2009, but back then they couldn`t find anything wrong from my blood sample. The problems continued and in March this year I decided to take another blood sample, suspecting that my body could have problems processing proteines from milk and/or gluten. My milk suspicions was confirmed and my doctor adviced me to stay away from milk and dairy products in general.
That`s what I`ve done (or at least tried to do). I did expect it to be hard, but not quite as hard as it turned out to be. Even some of the products you expect not to contain milk proteine does in fact contain it and the list over ingredients are often extremely vague and confusing. I don`t know about your country, but here there definately aren`t strict enough rules regarding allergy marking on groceries. A lot of grocery may contain only E numbers and they may have origins from animal sources, and customers will have no idea, unless they go on the internet and check all the E numbers they can come across. If I want to go to a cafe or something the person often tell me that he or she don`t know if the food I ask about contain milk or not. That`s just not good enough. Some people can die even from a small amount of milk. Many people aren`t even aware of that fact. They think nuts are the only dangerous allergy. Well, I wouldn`t die, but it would affect me physically and mentally as well if there was milk in the food. One portion of cowmilk porridge and my body feels completely exhausted or I get a stomach in PAIN!
I recently learned that my body has been attacked by so called “hidden” milk proteine without me knowing it. I was told by the doctor the same day she gave me my diagnosis that it would take some time for my body to heal after struggling to process milk proteines for so long. Well, I wanted it to heal so I avoided all dairy products. I just didn`t know about the “hidden” ones. I didn`t know those strange names they went by… Now I guess it will take even longer for it to heal properly (because of the lack of allergy information) My will is strong and I want to get my body back on track and won`t give up. It will require a lot of hard work on my end, a lot of awareness and of course a lot of money. I will send an application for support money, but I have been told that I shouldn`t expect much from it. Most people in my shoes won`t be heard. Why? “Because you won`t die from milk- or gluten proteine. You only experience stomach aches, digestive problems, depressions and other mental illnesses. You can live that way. we don`t care” That seems to be the general thought here in Norway and it`s very upsetting. If I want support money I have to go through a fight…
In the mean time I will continue buying alternatives to milk, buy the cleanest food I come across, make my own food and do a lot of reading concerning the subject… I don`t need dairy products. People seems to think you can`t even make a cake without milk coming from a cow. How ignorant they are. Of course we can. I`ve made rice porridge using coconut milk and rice milk. The taste is a bit different of course, but still good. I`ve made cacao with almond milk and it`s delicious. A perfectly tasting brownie… That`s some of it… It`s possible to make a pizza without the cheeze.
Use your imagination! 😀 I don`t eat a lot of sugar either. That`s a choise. Well, I`ve written enough. Just wanted to share my thoughts and I`m glad you people care about your health and eat the kind of food you feel is right for you, despite of the general believe (milk being a necessary part of your diet etc, which is bullshit anyways)food is one of my most favorite topics! i could go on forever about how the Standard American Diet is the worst thing that you could do to your body. after all the things i have learned about the food industry and of course what i know about marketing and big business, i have brought myself and my family to eat a raw whole foods (no not the store also known as “Whole Paycheck” lol) plant based diet. some people think this is extreme. what? no milk and neon colored processed foods for the kids? no. my 2 year old’s favorite food is a salad made simply of dark leafy greens (purple colored lettuce is her fav) with apple cider vinegar and flax oil. or a spinach and mango smoothie. my kids have yet to catch a cold, the flu or anything else.
i’m actually trying to come up with some no-fuss super-simple way to educate people about the foods they eat. its really eye opening to people who have no idea.
Do you have any tips for eating a raw (or even mostly raw) diet affordibly? I can do it in the summer when the growing season is going on, but buying produce in the winter (6+ months here) is very expensive, often lacking in variety of any sort, and is often imported from areas I know rainforests were cut for food crops. 🙁
Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.com
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