After giving my presentation in class on Monday, I thought you all might be interested in what the Hershey company has to say about the PGPR additive in their chocolate. They claim that the scientific research that has been done by the FDA has concluded that PGPR is safe, however, other scientific studies have concluded otherwise. This may be due to Hershey conducting their own research through the FDA. In addition to the information on PGPR, Hershey has a sidebar (on the left side) stating all of the ingredients they use in their chocolate. With all of those added ingredients, any nutritional value that the original, unprocessed cocoa had is now overridden by the many unnatural and excessive additives that Hershey adds to their chocolate.

http://www.thehersheycompany.com/nutrition-and-wellbeing/what-we-believe/our-ingredients/ingredient-topics/pgpr.aspx

A recent study published in the Global Change Biology journal found that arthropods (insects, millipedes, and spiders) can act as tiny trash disposals in NYC’s public spaces. Littered food waste can have huge human health implications, and if rats, squirrels, raccoons, and pigeons pick up our littered food, we are basically feeding a population that can transmit diseases to humans. Arthropods, on the other hand, don’t make us sick, and are extremely effective at removing littered food waste. So think twice before stepping on the next insect you see on the streets!

Read more here: http://time.com/3611552/insects-eat-food-waste/

“Food Chains” is the most recent food documentary to be released (November 21, 2014), and I highly recommend it. It dives into the history of farm labor in the United States, which goes back to slavery, and shows how unfair labor conditions still are. It focuses on the CIW and how they are revolutionizing farm labor in the United States. Farmworkers live well below the poverty line, only making an average of $12,000 per year. Sexual harassment of female farmworkers is a huge issue and the documentary states that about 80% of these women experience sexual harassment in the fields. The CIW developed the Fair Food program, which asks large retailers like supermarkets and fast food restaurants to pay a penny more per pound of tomatoes and to refuse to buy tomatoes from farms with human rights violations. Even though this only represents a portion of farmworkers in the U.S., I think that this program, as well as documentaries like Food Chains that depict the problems associated with farm labor, can go far in educating Americans on the issues and solutions that exist in agriculture.

This is an amazing article to read during the holidays. Ben Simon, 24 years old created a non-profit organization, Food Recovery Network, that takes leftover food from college campuses and distributes it to impoverished and hungry community members. He voices his opinion that America’s biggest environmental issue is the fact that we produce too much food when it’s not necessary. What started his appreciation for food recovery was when he was a student at University of Maryland, and he spotted staff throwing away so much perfectly good food that he decided to start an initiative to fix that. Awesome read, I highly recommend.

This entrepreneur turns leftover cafeteria food into hot meals for hungry people

6 months ago, before I became a vegetarian, I ate Chick-Fil-A 3-4 times a week. The chicken nuggets and spicy chicken sandwiches were my absolute favorite food, complete with a side of their famous waffle fries and a vanilla milkshake. The workers at Chick-Fil-A treat their customers with the utmost respect, as they greet you with the most lovely and welcoming, “hi! How are you today? What can I get for you?” and after completing your order, they reply “Absolutely, it will be out shortly. Thank you so much for coming today and we hope you have an amazing day!” So so so nice. I thought the Chick-Fil-A business could not be beat, besides the extremely conservative views and the manager’s punch on gay marriage a couple of years ago, and them closing on Sundays. What I didn’t know was how their workers in the factory farms they got their chickens from treated the birds. Truly disgusting and worth the watch of the video and read of the article. I even signed the petition below. Now, I will not go to Chick-Fil-A for just my waffle fries. I will boycott that chain until they clean up their acts.

Read below:

https://www.change.org/p/help-the-simpsons-co-creator-sam-simon-take-a-bite-out-of-chick-fil-a-s-animal-cruelty?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=190326&alert_id=ubKisHQomu_nNlO5aFRjAC373r2Fs8lxxBZzBrIilnBtNnz95GIl6M%3D

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/safe/overview.html

The section of class in which we discussed animals was my favorite, I found it very interesting and enlightening. This is an article that discusses the safety of our meat based on the antibiotics that are being used on the livestock not only for emotional reasons but also for extreme weight gain and resistance to diseases.

http://www.planetnatural.com/composting-101/

Ever since our discussion about composting, and watching my grandparents compost for years, I would like to start my own. My mom is all for it but I wanted to look up some logistics on how to make a compost. So this is a great article for all of you who want to learn to compost!

http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/press.php

EWG charged today that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has failed to tell Americans , a requirement under federal law ,they have a right to know about the risks of pesticide exposure and ways they can reduce pesticides in their diets. The Environmental Working Group also has an app for your phone where you can scan barcodes of food and see the nutritional value of it as well as other facts about it; the app is called EWG Food Scores. The EPA has not complied in full with the Congressional mandate, for more than a decade EWG has stepped in to fill the void by publishing its Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce. The app is awesome and is aiming to help consumers make healthier, greener food choices. It encompasses more than 80,000 foods, 5,000 ingredients and 1,500 brands. Products are related based on three elements: nutrition, ingredient concerns, and processing and are scored on a scale from 1-10; 1 being the best score.

http://www.fitness.gov/eat-healthy/how-to-eat-healthy/

I am a very firm believer in eating healthy, for the most part I eat healthy everyday with a few instances here and there when I let myself indulge in something that is not so great nutritionally. This article is good for people who are willing to make that change from unhealthy to healthy eating lifestyles.

http://www.mercola.com/nutritionplan/foodalert.htm

This is a neat site it gives a list of nutritional facts about a well known 25 types of food.