If beets could talk, and in my life they do, most of what is happening in Washington right now regarding food safety sounds certifiably nuts. I hear that we now have about 2% of the population controlling most of our money. One of the easiest ways to control the rest of us is to control our food supply. From the looks of it, large multinational interests, big corporations and legislators who have never been inside a health food store, to their local farmers' market, or grown a beet themselves, are giving the rest of us indigestion.
Food safety laws that were being discussed on the hill during September -- S.510 and S.3767 -- may be on a break for the moment. The issues remain and will be taken up when the senate reconvenes. We need a national conversation about food that is making us sick, and to ask each other: Why? Most of us do not know how to eat. This plays into the hands of those who would dictate food policy. We need a moment of awakening. We need to regain our beat with nature. We need to have some relationship with healthy soil and growing things.
From a beet's point of view, food was never meant to be a commodity. Food was never meant to be a force in the political arena to restrict people from foods they feel they need for natural health. Food was never meant to be in the hands of large industrial growers who prefer to have fewer people growing food. They rely more on drugs and chemicals to provide a poor imitation of what nature had in mind.
What Washington knows about food has no ground from a beet's point of view. The cornerstone of authentic food safety is first of all, growing some of your own food, and second, having a personal relationship with the farmers growing the rest of your food. This is an ideal. How many of us live in places like San Diego where we can grow food 12 months of the year and get to know more than 100 local farmers by name?
At the bottom end of the scale of food growers are the micro farmers -- small food growers -- and everywhere now, from New York City to the West, people are returning to food growing. Micro farmers, in a truly healthy food safe economy need to be encouraged, yet currently they are falling between the cracks. For authentic food safety, we need more food growers, more gardeners and farmers, not less. We are being called to be a nation of gardeners. This is essential if we want to return to true food safety.
Micro farmers and gardeners growing on less than a few acres live by other codes. They grow food that is labor intensive. The 15% of people who still micro-farm are part of that tradition. Modern conventional food and its PR are ensuring a growing climate in America that is not good for small growers.
Take as an example the case of Barry Logan, who had a final harvest celebration September 18, 2010. Barry Logan, with the help of his live-in community, served San Diego for seven years with fresh food. I am talking about food that can turn health around. He sold food at three farmers' markets. His customers were his regulators. He had been running La Milpa Organica Farm as a social experiment, as an open university. He farmed on a small field, organically. His workers were from around the world. His customers became friends and he would invite them to the farm for potlucks and pizza each month. That life does not exist any more on that land.
He broke a lot of rules: Workman's Compensation codes, tax codes, and numerous other regulations. Enough of the larger organic farmers can live within these rules, and do; and yet, our laws are out of touch for the most part with what it takes to grow quality real food that is safe food. Safe food, healthy food, and food safety are not on the same plate.
Do local farmers really need more red tape? Truly Big Ag does. Logan believes micro small growers should not be regulated. A system of labor intensive farming that has existed for 10,000 years is butting heads with legislators, regulators, and regulations who would benefit from on the farm training at a La Milpa Organica Farm Open University. The farm is gone. But we can still learn from it.
Shift happened. We are now being asked to be stars in a real-life Rock Your Soul Opera by Keep The Beet Media Star called Beet Keepers, Return! Can you hear the "beet"? Yes, people can die from contaminated food. But regulations without a healthy conversation create more illness, not less.
Nature's original technology is here to stay on an Enchanted Garden planet. We can grow 1000 years of peace in harmony with nature if we begin now to regain our beat with nature. Gloria Estefan sang, "Turn the Beat Around!" Truly, to reform food safety, we are asked to turn the beet around. Small size growers are part of nature's original technology -- and healthy legislators should be too. High tech and GMO's give us the option to have fewer people on the farm; they need a thorough vetting. A true dialogue between science, ethics, and food is coming into focus. Indeed, we are only now beginning to understand the true meaning of food safety.
This post originally appeared at CureZone. Feel free to follow the link and join the conversation.
It passed the Senate on November 30 in a rush job
that had some inherent errors in it. That's what happens
when you betray the hopes of America the Beautiful.
You cannot take down the power and beauty of the original
American Dream that depends on each of us rising up to be
Stars in a Rock Your Soul Opera called Beet Keepers, Return!
Manley P Hall wrote a book called "The Secret Destiny of America."
It describes the mystical events, little known, about the Amazing Grace
that overshadowed the birth of our nation. #S510 is inherently flawed
and a contaminated bill.
CHEWING ON FOOD SAFETY:
A NATIONAL CONVERSATION IS NEEDED
for more links by Leslie Goldman
Your Enchanted Gardener
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=chewing+on+food+safety&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Also Liora Leah visited La Milpa Organica Farm,
as Barry Logan Micro-Farmer, grieving and emotionally hurt,
was loading up his remaining things as part of the take down
of this Micro--Farm that was a successful experiment in growing
Food as Medicine for seven years in San Diego County.
http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1731018
FOR MORE VIDEOS ON THE ELOQUENT BARRY LOGAN
MICROFARMER GO HERE
http://pr4progress.org/plantyourdream/?page_id=50
TO BE IN THE CONVERSATION ON
CHEWING ON FOOD SAFETY,
PLEASE JOIN THE DIALOGUE ON SCIENCE,
ETHICS, AND FOOD ON FACEBOOK
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=348831351129
ARE NEEDED NOW TO SENATORS
#S510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, comes to a vote after Thanksgiving.
Be one of 1 million calls to the Capital Switchboard
at (202) 224-3121. Call for a national conversation on Food Safety
with all voices being heard on the issue before the Senators vote
on this extremely important and far reaching bill.
The senators would like to rush the bill through
without fully digesting the issues involved here
or giving We the People, a thorough voice
in the decision making of the future of our food supply.
As the bill would pass now,
It grants the FDA too much additional authority to harm those
who would practice Food as Medicine.
In Europe and the UK, the trend is to make it very
difficult for natural herbs and medicines to survive
after April 2011. The FDA is in alignment with that trend.
READ THE REST OF THIS BLOG HERE
http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1729804
SEE THIS BLOG FOR MORE INFO
ABOUT HOW TO REACH SENATORS
on #S510 Food Safety Modernization Act.
WHO TO CALL
http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1726651
LISTEN TO THIS RADIO SHOW
MADE ON THANKSGIVING DAY
#S510 SOS: A National Conversation is Needed
before Senators Vote on #S510, Food Safety Modernization Act.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/purposefocusedu/2010/11/25/purpose-focused-alternative-learning-corporation
BEFORE WE VOTE ON #S510 Food Safety Modernization Act.
RADIO SHOW ON THANKSGIVING DAY
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/purposefocusedu/2010/11/25/purpose-focused-alternative-learning-corporation
#S510 SOS: ONE MILLION PHONE CALLS
ARE NEEDED NOW TO SENATORS
#S510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, comes to a vote
after Thanksgiving. Be one of 1 million calls to the Capital Switchboard
at (202) 224-3121 and tell senators you are noting how they
vote. Call for a national conversation on Food Safety
with all voices having the chance to be heard.
We celebrate how food is our primary medicine.
We promise to vote out any and all senators who want
to harmonize our food rules with the USDA and international
and Codex Food Rules more than harmonize their lives
with the beat of nature.
There are many, though, who are waking up to the fact that we have been grossly misled into imbibing food that is low level toxic. Just enough so it means a slow death, not a crisis illness but a long sloooowww disease that eventually cripples and kills.
This so called food safety modernization act is a power grab by the FDA and will mean a certain death to the only agricultural sector that holds any promise for giving us healthy food, those farms that are decidely 'unmodern' in many ways, but the cutting edge of science in many others.
We need to support sustainable agriculture and reject politically correct, heaped on regulation that sounds good but will be a disaster in reality.
Help small farms, join our crop mob: http://hartkeisonline.com/food-politics/wanted-a-crop-mob-of-50000-to-save-artisan-dairy-farming/
The FDA even without the unbridled power that S510 will grant is setting out to destroy farms it targets. The FDA thinks raw dairy products should be denied us, and they intend to do just that.
Kimberle Hartke of the Westin A Price Foundation picked up on my morning Plan Your Dream Blog and reprinted it at the link above. I like adding the Tester Amendment to give some protection to the local farmers; however, I am not into giving away the thousands of years tradition of healing through harmonizing with the beat of nature just so the industrialists can have our food supply safe for their market share. I couldn't digest raw cheese and butter until I discovered pasture fed raw cheese and pasture fed raw butter from grass fed contented cows udderly happy. We are talkiing food as medicine here. You can't mistreat a cow and expect healthy hormones in your cheese. Cows and other animals are part of the Wheel of Health. I am so glad for all the support
I am getting for the Campaign to Educate Washington on Real Food Safety. When are the Senators going to come out to our local Hillcrest Farmers Market and have a pow wow, so we all can get behind a good Food Safety Modernization that acknowledges that the cornerstore of real food safety our farmers such as Barry Logan? Invite a contented cow to moo before the senate. Invite Barry Logan to speak. My beet will talk for both of them.
Happy Birthday to All!
This is mine, november 19.,2010
Thanks to the Senators for giving us more time,
Leslie
He asks, why is the government coming down on the local growers
and leaving the big producers to carry on.
We need to discuss this. This really needs to be a national conversation.
http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1725002
"The proposed legislation, strongly encouraged by the Obama administration, sailed through the U.S. House last fall, and then through a Senate committee earlier this year. "
HR 2749, the bill that got through the House last summer in July, not as stated in the Fall, did not sail through. The House members were shocked and stunned the first time it came to the floor. There was an enormous internet outcry. The House members then regrouped, changed the rules, and brought it before the House the next day. The bill was never fully vetted. It would be a good research project to actually find out how educated any of those who voted for the bill actually read it or knew what it said.
We seriously need to Chew on Food Safety: A National Conversation is needed before we
allow 100 senators to determine the fate of our food supply. These senators need a serious education. That is why I am launching a year long campaign to do so. God bless them, but they need to be reminded of the stanzas of our song "America The Beautiful!" I want to read the stanzas in the shows on Grist before the vote, November 17 (as projected) It is the wrong move to give more regulatory power to the FDA now before they are vetted.
in April 2011, European legislation,
which has already been passed, will come into force.
This will effectively mean that all herbal medicines
will disappear from the UK. No Ayurvedic (Indian) herbs,
no Chinese herbs, no Western herbs, no Tibetan herbs,
no herbs whatsoever. We will have access only
to treatments that are totally based
on pharmaceutical drugs
for treating our ailments.
With no access to the full range of herbal treatments,
all herbalists, Ayurvedic doctors, and TCM
or holistic practitioners will overnight be handicapped
in their attempt to help their patients.
http://publications.imva.info/
The Medical Debasing of Humanity
http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1722247
Mark Sircus Ac., OMD
Director International Medical Veritas Association
http://publications.imva.info
when it comes up the week of November 17, 2010
http://thegormleyfiles.blogspot.com/2009/10/senate-bill-510-825-billion-dollar.html
Are you a backyard grower of heirloom tomatoes you sell on your own property or at a local farmer’s market? If so, you will be in for a whopper of a surprise if Senator Durbin’s Senate Bill 510 (S.B. 510) passes: you may be receiving a visit from inspectors.
Products not grown according to designated standards will be considered adulterated and your business records will be subject to warrantless searches by inspectors from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), all this without any evidence that you have violated any law.
Wonder why the National Guard or Federal agents have effectively imposed martial law by quarantining your town? Under S.B. 510’s House counterpart bill, H.R. 2749 (Section 133b, “Authority to Prohibit or Restrict the Movement of Food”), sponsored by Congressman Dingell, the Secretary of Health and Human Services will have the power to prohibit all movement of all food within a geographic area, whether the food is in your grandmother’s grocery bag in her Toyota Hybrid or on a flatbed. No court order will be needed, just a phone call to the appropriate state official and a public announcement will be sufficient.
The truth to be told regarding your thought as to whether Congress has: "... delighted in the taste of (real) butter from contented cows .." is that this points to the need for healthy animal fats that are required to nourish the brain and especially those brains in Congress! Based on the insanity of their proposed legislation one can easily wonder whether the thinking of the members of Congress have been effected by their diets. Do the members of Congress include healthy animal fats like real butter from grass-fed animals? If they do not then it's no wonder that they have disregard for the real foods that they appear to be "criminalizing" through their legislation. Then again who actually wrote the legislation and do the members of Congress actually read these bills? I hear they don't read them!
"The Most Important and Fundamental Thing You Can Do Right Now To Secure Your Freedom To Eat The Food Of Your Choice.":
http://www.curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1706688
"The FDA Is Already Abusing Their Power. Do We Really Want To Give (It) More?":
http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1712654
http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Regulation/FDA-Lipton-green-tea-is-a-drug
Here's a most enormous & complicated matter that directly involves every American & one that can have potential severe impacts on us, on our farms and communities! There is a tremendous need for very long term thinking on the many issues that fall under the heading of "food security". Consequently, It is in our very best interest (from a "people" perspective - see blog linked below) that we slow down the legislative process so that we can begin having a million conversations on this subject across every state in the Union. Therefore, I am personally endorsing Leslie Goldman's appeal that we call the Senators & tell them we want our conversations now! We want the legislative process to wait long enough for the people to inform Congress about our thinking, feeling and willing on this matter. Many realize that there is an urgent need for oversight of the large food corporations and yet we are not confident that Congress will effectively perform that oversight. What are our other options? Congress is mute on this & so the people have to rise to the occasion & consider how we can begin to fill the gap here. Our participation in the conversations that are needed now may possibly suggest our direct involvement in the oversight of the food industry and those potential suggestions need to be carefully and completely thought out. So CongressL chill the bill, wait for the people's will!
http://www.curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1729675
Government agencies need to get back to working for the people, instead of for big business that cares nothing about our wellbeing.
Speaking up. Saying it like it is,
Being a Star in Keep The Beet's Rock Your Soul Opera.
I am humbled and honored to hear you
and to do what I can to help.
Leslie
Your Enchanted Gardener
NEW PLANT YOUR DREAM WEBSITE
FUNDRAISER TO EDUCATE WASHINGTON ON
REAL FOOD SAFETY
http://pr4progress.org/plantyourdream/?page_id=250
http://www.change.org/petitions/view/chewing_on_food_safety_a_national_conversation_is_needed
Here is the link to Chewing on Food Safety:
A National Conversation is Needed
for Part 2 of the Radio Show on JoAnn Armenta's
BlogTalk Radio Show. The Show is archived.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/purposefocusedu/2010/10/21/purpose-focused-alternative-learning-corporation