Month: December 2014 (Page 2 of 3)

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/12/05/368248812/why-did-vitamins-disappear-from-non-gmo-breakfast-cereal

This article discusses how the GMO-free movement in many breakfast cereals has caused these cereals to become void of vitamins like A, D, B-12, and B-2. It turns out that additives such as riboflavin that have failed to pass GMO-free tests and it is easier for companies to exclude the additives altogether than find natural vitamin solutions. Although this could be a signal that a GMO-free world may cause issues such as this, I think it is more of a signal that the natural ingredients we put in products should have vitamins and nutrients present. Perhaps the wheat that these companies use to make their cereals is GMO-free, but it’s probably also planted in a monoculture fashion on land that has been reaped of nutrients and minerals.

Perhaps the GMO-free fad has caused some processed foods to lose their vitamins, but shouldn’t that be a larger signal that maybe we should turn to eggs and organic fruit for breakfast rather than something out of a box?

This video goes into a lot of detail regarding what is wrong with the current, modern-day Farm Bill. Most of the topics mentioned we have already discussed in class, however, there were a few interesting facts that were stated that we did not necessarily read about! For example, the government subsidizes Christmas tree farming relatively heavily. It is so interesting to hear about what the government feels needs to be subsidized and what they feel does not need support. Based on these subsidies, we see certain farmers succeeding, while others struggle to make ends meet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE9l94b3x9U

SUCH an interesting video. Goes along with my research presentation on chickens and eggs. Perdue is a company that focuses on profit and profit alone, not the consumer or the humane treatment of chickens. Worth the watch.

This article shows eleven different graphs that truly depict the reasons American citizens are more overweight and unhealthy today than in past decades. A lot of these graphs depicted can be related back to the food producers themselves and what chemicals/additives are being incorporated into our food. For example, the large increase in the consumption of soybean oil can undoubtedly be traced back to food processors incorporating this cheap crop into products. The two most shocking graphs in my opinion were the graphs that depicted the huge spike in both butter consumption and in refined sugars. Check it out!

http://authoritynutrition.com/11-graphs-that-show-what-is-wrong-with-modern-diet/

Fast food workers in almost 200 cities in the US are expected to walk out of their job tomorrow (Thursday), demanding higher minimum wages. This campaign of unionization of workers began two years ago, and it has been said that workers are gaining momentum. Two important cities, Seattle and San Fransisco passed laws to raise the minimum wage to 15 dollars over the next coupe of years, and New York and L.A. are also hopping on that bandwagon. McDonalds workers will be the first to go on strike tomorrow, and this will thankfully help raise awareness and injustices in the fast food industry in terms of how low the minimum wage is.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/food-fight-work-stoppages-planned-at-many-fast-food-restaurants/

The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) has been forced to suspend food aid for more than 1.7 Syrians who have fled the war in their homeland and are now scattered throughout many nations in the Middle East. The WFP simply ran out of money, and now millions of people are starving. Syrian refugee families in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon will be faced with a harsh and disastrous winter without the proper food aid. International aids filed to fill a 64 million dollar funding shortfall, which will only help during the month of December, but then will run out. The timing of this cutback could not be worse.

An interesting and quite depressing read, please check this article out!

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/12/2/syrian-refugee-aidcuts.html

Celebrity chefs Tom Colicchio, José Andrés, Sam Talbot and a handful of others went to Capitol Hill to deliver a petition to members of Congress, with the aim of convincing them to support legislation requiring the labeling of genetically modified foods.

“Americans need to know, on a very basic level, what they’re eating,” said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., an organic farmer who attended this meet up as well. Chefs, beyond having control over the ingredients that go into their dishes,feel a certain obligation to their diners.

After passing a law requiring food manufacturers to label products containing GMOs in May, Vermont is currently in the midst of fighting a lawsuit, filed by organizations aiming to block the bill, saying mandatory labeling violates the Constitution.

Read more: http://www.wtop.com/41/3754793/Top-chefs-meet-with-lawmakers-to-urge-GMO-labeling-#ixzz3KrqaKRk4

http://www.naturalnews.com/047654_groundwater_crisis_food_supply_NASA.html

I found this article very interesting because I don’t think many people consider these two topics to be related to one another. This article discusses the global groundwater crisis and how it has the potential to lead to a food supply collapse.

Data obtained form the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) reveal that there, Californians in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins have lost approximately 15 cubic kilometers (4 cubic miles) of total water every year since 2011, which is more water than all 38 million Californians combined use on an annual basis for both municipal and domestic purposes.

The cause is our belief that water will always be there, we have begun to take it for granted and now we are about to feel the consequences. Groundwater resides underneath the Earth’s surface, it’s difficult for many to grasp the severity of the situation and become proactive about it because they cannot see it.

Something we’ve talked about in class, but is worth bringing back up!

The corporate food system has once again brought GMO into the votes of Americans, recently in Colorado and Oregon. Colorado’s Proposition 105 failed by a 2-to-1 margin, with just under 66% of voters claim that honest food labeling isn’t for them. And in Oregon, Ballot Measure 92 has also been defeated.

Interesting to see how these bills are either passed or not passed. Definitely worth the read.
http://www.naturalnews.com/047578_GMO_labeling_Big_Food_biotech_industry.html

A student in a Maseno School in western Kenya decided to do something out of the ordinary, by harvesting waste from students, waste from kitchens on campus, grass, and cow manure to create a viable solution as a waste bioreactor. This underground solution ended up creating biogas, a source of renewable energy, to use for cooking. Definitely a cool and interesting article to read that I highly recommend it. Puts a different perspective on biogas!

A Kenyan kid turns his friends’ poop into clean energy