Was your food happy before it was your food?

After inspiration (Happy food? 3), comes some truth.

Truth: Greed is the only reason why there is unhealthy food, unhealthy produce, soil, rivers, ground water, and unhealthy and unhappy animals being raised as food on this Earth.

Greed has distorted health into a marketable product that, if you or I have the money, can be bought. That is true in GMO, non organic, food desert USA and it is in any part of the world where malnutrition, poverty and therefore corruption, or the hands of capitalism are found. Case in point, the recent poisoning of young school children in India. The oil used to cook the food was laced with high levels of pesticides. Almost 30 children died in hours, and not gently.
Greed is the result of ethics gone on vacation. Since the World Wars, and therefore post the military industrial complex and its outer visage of capitalism, ethics has been on a slow and steady decline. We now live in a time when people who have been touched by westernization consider themselves entitled, think of themselves first, and often don’t consider the consequences to others of their words or actions. This is why YOU MATTER. Every person has the ethical responsibility of doing the right thing. To quote the Tibetan sage Tsong Khapa, “Consider the working of black and white actions; practicing correctly is your own responsibility.”1

Greed is never the right thing. It results are, in the least, only self serving. This will always be through a loss or degradation (or both) lived by others. Those sacrificed to greed are people, whole cultures, the soil, animals, the air, water, and even the future. Greed is a selfish expression of the Now. Now I will do this, Now I will have this. It has little or no regard for the future and greed’s successive effects.

Greed is the only genesis that would create a model to force raise 100,000 to 250,000 chickens at a time in confinement. “It is estimated that more than 90% of the U.S.’s 280 million egg-laying hens were produced in high concentration factory farms, with the animals being confined to inhumane battery cages.”2  Laying hens are caged with 10-12 other birds, meat birds are usually left on a huge floor in abject crowded conditions standing in their own filth. The birds are debeaked by cauterizing the tip of their beak off as a chick. They never see sunlight, never breath fresh air, are never able to fly or scratch for grubs, or be anything but miserable. These living beings are not even treated as living creatures. Therefore, please be aware of your source of chicken products, eggs included. In the United States the vast majority of name brands are raising animals this way. Their karma is substantial. Yet you and I have a choices. Please see the link below for brands to avoid and to support.

Similar is for hogs raised for pork, bacon, ham and such. Cows fair slightly better, but only slightly. I won’t go into the detail of the gross and turn-your-stomach facts about non-organic, non-free roaming cow milk and cheese products. Rest assured, you would never drink anything but pastured happy cow milk again. But, of course, a human body does not need any milk product after it has been weaned from breast milk. Curiously, humans are the only animal on the planet that continues to drink that which is designed only for infancy of any animal.

Truth: Your food purchases matter, which means your and my education about food matters. For example, the term “natural” on a product label means nothing. It is a marketing ploy and nothing else. There is no difference between a product that says natural and one that does not, except the price tag. It will cost more for no difference other than a word. In that vein, please support initiatives to label GMO ingredients in food and to keep organic food organic. Our right to know what our food consists of and, if in fact, it is organic if labeled as such is imperative to our health, the health of our families, and the Earth.

Truth: An educated consumer is the only way that the food industry will change. Why is this important other than moral, ethical, and compassionate reasons? For the health of every human being from the womb to the reason for the tomb. Because the soil, water air and all ecosystems of the Earth are sorely polluted and abused by wrong food raising practices (produce and animal). Because the generations to come are born from the genetic pool of the the people today. It is not sensical that genetic modified foods will not adversely effect our genes. What turns on a cancer gene? What inhibits a healing gene? A food that is no longer how Mother Nature manufactured it is unknown to our body, just as its pollen is unknown to the bee’s bodies or that of the lab rat. The bees die, the lab rats get cancer tumors the size of golf balls.

Our consumer choices provide health and well-being for all living beings or don’t. It really is that simple. Our planet is a closed system. Rebirth is too. You and I are the next generation, and the one after that, and the one after that. Heaven and Hell are how we live and create the heaven or hell of our next cycle of living.

Truth: Monocultures are anathema to Nature and all natural processes. Nature thrives because of diversity, complexity, and variations on a theme. Growing food in a way opposite to natural law and natural dispositions creates imbalance. There are two primary reasons for the honey bee colony collapse disorder, and both are common sense. a) Pesticides. Just as an anti-biotic kills all biotic beings in our colon not just the strain that is effecting a cold, so pesticides kill all insects though the manufacturers say that they are targeted for certain grubs or beetles. Common sense would say that can’t be so. We live a similar example if we are on chemotherapy for cancer. Our whole body is effected, not just the cancer cells.

b) The second reason for the collapse of the honey bee colonies is monoculture. There are two possibilities here. One is that the bees are starving from malnutrition due to singularity of pollen and nectar type in these vast fields. Wherever they fly, there is only one crop, and the crop is poisoned. Second possibility is that this situation has produced obesity and gluttony in the honey bee. It is designed by nature, hundreds of millions of years ago, to keep foraging, keep foraging. Busy bee, right? So a double whammy happens. All that they eat is not healthy for them because it is poisoned from the start and all that they eat makes they unhealthy because there is no variety. It’s like eating Doritos non-stop and their being no choice about that. Monocultures are the equivalent of human food deserts where the only food a person can obtain is poisonous to their body and also is an unhealthy type of food.

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You matter. I matter. I have tried several times in my life to go vegetarian. My type O body can’t do it. I’m an omnivore.Yet I can, as can anyone else, choose to eat less meat and fish per week. Increase the organic veggies. The cost will even out, if not be in one’s favor. Other good organic sources of protein include quinoa, legumes, and nuts.

Our choices matter. If we deeply consider the disparity of food and health in our own nation (whatever country that is) and then consider the poverty and malnutrition in the world, one is led to change one’s habits. Being ignorant is no longer blissful, nor is the self-serving fear one’s limited money is the reason for purchasing food that is not healthy, nor produce long life, and instead is involved the mass production of unhappiness and poisoning of life itself. One’s smart choice with limited money is to spend that money very wisely. Here in the US, there are thousands of people who go to great lengths to feed their pets organic or even raw food but eat unhealthily themselves. Why is the education gained about the well-being of the pet not translated into the well-being of the person? Just as the demand for organic, raw, or GMO free pet food has spawned various product lines, the same would happen to the general consumer pool of goods.

Greed is the reason why infant formula now has GMO soy and some form of sugar in it. Why is there any form of sugar or fructose in infant formula?  So that the baby drinks more of it. Get them fat right away, greed says, because that fattens someone’s bank account.

Every purchase is the opportunity to change the world. The same is so for not making a purchase and keeping your money.

One more thing, if anyone thinks that Monsanto is trying to help Africa, Mexico, or India by selling its GMO (genetically modified organism) seeds to these nations, please think again and know the facts.

• Monsanto seeds are sterile, meaning that they cannot produce seeds from their harvest. The corn or grain that results will not grow next season. It is impotent. Thus, the farmer who is hoodwinked into the first purchase is now caught in a death trap. Monsanto knows that and designed the trap. That impoverished farmer, being impoverished, has borrowed the funds to purchase the seed, thus now has to produce both food for his family and for the market to repay the loan. And each year, due to the sterility of the seeds, this situation will compound. Monsanto knows this since it designed the seed and the business model. Disaster is the result.

The suicide rate of men in rural India has spiked horribly. According to the law there, if they kill themselves, their family is not responsible for their debt. A movement was started by widows to bring this to India’s and to world attention. Please do not purchase anything made by or related to Monsanto. Find out about its subsidiaries.

• This means not purchasing any meat product that was raised in confinement. Why? Because they are fed GMO (genetically modified) feed. So, not only are they raised in conditions that would make anyone sick to observe or smell. but they are fed food that grows them molecularly but also laces their bodies with the poison of genetically modified organisms. Then this is consumed by human or pet’s bodies that do not know what to do with deep chemistry within the meat.

Non-organic produce grown anywhere in continental North or Central America is sprayed with tons (fact) of pesticides and herbicides annually. Monsanto is the largest manufacturer and distributor of these products. The list of degradations  that go with that fact include:

• Poisoned rivers, streams, and ground water which is the only source of drinking water for all people, animals, and plants.
• Poisoned air because these “cides” are sprayed or powdered on. They also evaporate with the natural evaporation processes of soil, plants, and dew.
• More pesticides and herbicides are needed almost annually. Nature is stronger, and rightly so. Nature finds a way to survive the onslaught, and does so through producing super weeds, super bacteria, and super pests. Working against is never sustainable.
• The alarming collapse of honey bee populations and other pollinators is similar but worse than the DDT debacle in the 60’s. Then, birds of prey were producing eggs with fragile shells, thus when sitting on them to brood actually crushed the eggs or developing babies. Various species experienced rapid decline and quick action was needed. At the time, the governmental agencies of the US were not bought and sold to lobbyists and corporations as is the case now, thus right action could happen. The collapse of bee populations is worse situation. Why? Because honey bees pollinate the majority of all food eaten by humans and animals. Without bees the whole world will starve. It’s simple. When you purchase non-organic food of any kind, you are knowingly or not contributing to your and the human race’s demise.
• Ultimately, all this poison ends up in our body. We are the end of the food chain. Let’s put the obvious together: if a pesticide kills pests on the broccoli, how is that pesticide not on your plate?
• Finally, the public water supply in countries such as the US is laced with the annual tons of pesticides and herbicides that naturally become part of the ground water. In certain locations run off from mounds of fecal matter and urine from confinement meat producers also makes its way into the ground water and water supply.

The power to change this untenable system of poisonous gluttony is in the hands of each person. My and your choices help everyone and everything, now and in the future, have a happier and healthier life or a sick and crippling one. It’s that simple.

*Major chicken or turkey brands to avoid: Tyson and Tyson owed subsidaries, Perdue, Shady Brook, JennieO, or any label that reads “natural.”

Footnotes:

1. Tsong Khapa, Song of the Stages of Spiritual Practice, translation Glenn Mullin, verse 16
2. Battery Cages – The Dark Side of the Egg Industry, http://www.StopFactoryFarms.org

Informational links

• Which Companies Use Humanely-Raised Meat?
• Battery Cages – The Dark Side of the Egg Industry
• Environmental Working Group, the power of information (organization)
• Environmental Working Group YouTube channel

• Video: Exposure to Pesticides in Produce with Dr. Alex Lu, Harvard (2 min.)

• Video: CNN Dr. Gupta: Toxic Fruit and Veggies (US grocery store tour) (2 min.)
• Video: Food Inc, trailer (2 min)
• Video: Food Inc, movie streamed