2014 - The Top 5 Organic Food News Stories You Must Follow

- By Max Goldberg - January 01, 2014

As we head into 2014, there are several stories that I’ll be keeping a close eye on, all of which could have a monumental impact on the organic food industry.

While there easily could have been a lot more, here are My Top 5 Organic Food News Stories for 2014.

SINGLE INGREDIENT LABELING OF GMOs

Over the last few months, the rumors about single ingredient labeling of GMOs have really been heating up.

First off, what is “single ingredient labeling of GMOs”?

Single ingredient labeling of GMOs means that any food where there is only one ingredient – apples, corn, papayas, etc. It is just that one piece of food, nothing else.

If this were to get approval, it would be a deal that is completely negotiated out of the public eye, with the Obama administration and the conventional food industry both signing off on it.

Why would the conventional food industry agree to this?

With the outcry against GMOs and the call for GMO-labeling greater than ever before, Big Food would see this as a relatively painless yet strategic concession. The thinking would be to give in on this one but not on the labeling of all GMOs, most notably processed foods (soda, candy, snack food, etc.).

Since the labeling would only be for single ingredient foods, processed foods would not be impacted because they have multiple ingredients.

Why would the Obama administration agree to this?

In 2007 when on the campaign trail, President Obama said he would label GMOs (see video above). Since then, he has been a complete disaster for organic food, and this step would be his attempt to save face with the organic community.

Those in the organic industry who would be supportive of single ingredient labeling of GMOs would say this is a very significant victory and gets us one-step closer to our goal of GMO-labeling for all food.

Those in the organic industry who would be against single ingredient labeling of GMOs would say that this step would actually make it harder to get all GMOs labeled. Why?

Because the Obama administration would have made this one concession and would not make a second one for processed food. Furthermore, it would give additional ammunition to politicians who are already against GMO-labeling. They could say “Hey, we’re now labeling GMO-foods. What more do these people want?”

The real question would be whether single ingredient labeling would make it easier or harder to achieve the labeling of all genetically-engineered foods. The answer is uncertain, but it is sure to cause a heated debate among organic food activists.

SUNSET RULE OF THE NATIONAL ORGANIC PROGRAM

Arguably, the most important news story of 2014 has to do with maintaining the integrity of organic standards.

A few months ago, the USDA changed a rule regarding how “prohibited substances” are treated.

This rule is referred to as the Sunset Rule – meaning, specially approved or prohibited substances have a five-year period, then fade away into the sunset (expire), and are no longer allowed. Previously, this time frame could have been extended if a 2/3rds majority of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) decided to renew the substance.

Now, this new rule states that a prohibited substance stays on the list indefinitely until a 2/3rds majority vote of the NOSB decides to remove it.

So, instead of a prohibited substance automatically coming off after five years, it stays on indefinitely until it gets voted off. This completely puts the burden on consumer and environmental groups, and makes it much, much harder for a prohibited substance to get removed from the list.  

Some of the most respected watchdog groups, including the Center for Food Safety, Consumers Union, Beyond Pesticides, and Food & Water Watch, have ripped this new rule and said that it “guts the national organic law”, “is unfair to producers trying to produce a truly organic product”, “is unfair to consumers trying to make meaningful purchasing decisions”, “lowers the bar for much of the organic market”, and “circumvents public process”.

Even though she didn’t mention them by name, Melody Meyer, Vice President for United Natural Foods and chair of the board of the directors of the Organic Trade Association (OTA), responded and effectively called these watchdog groups liars.

Infuriated by what Melody Meyer had to say, Jim Riddle, former chair of the National Organic Standards Board, wrote a scathing response to Melody Meyer’s blog post and resigned from the OTA in protest.

Who to believe?

All I know is that the Center for Food Safety, Consumers Union, and Food & Water Watch are some of the most important and respected watchdogs organizations that we have in the organic industry, and they do absolutely impeccable work. I trust these people completely.

The OTA, on the other hand, represents the interests of organic corporations, not organic consumers, and is one that has a very checkered past.

Because of the recent government shutdown, October’s NOSB meeting never took place. So, this rule should get discussed at the next NOSB meeting in April in San Antonio. If there is no resolution on this rule at that time, expect lawsuits to be filed.

This is a very, very serious issue.

GMO-LABELING IN NEW YORK

After suffering through a tough loss in Washington state, organic activists are now asking what is the next potential state to approve GMO-labeling. While there are numerous states that are attempting to approve GMO-labeling, the most high profile of them all is New York.

Several months ago, New York state GE-labeling hearings were held in the Bronx and some state assembly members, most notably Linda Rosenthal (below, in red), are pushing very, very hard for this legislation to pass.

 

Unlike California or Washington, New York is not voted on by the state’s citizens. Instead, the state’s representatives and senators will be the ones who decide if labeling gets pushed through or not.

As of now, we must get through two separate subcommittees in the House, then it would go to a House vote, and ultimately it would have to get through Senate as well.

I have heard two things.

1) Even if we get through the House, getting through the Senate will be brutally difficult. This is because the opposition’s lobby has a constant presence in Albany and carries tremendous influence with state senators.

2) If Governor Cuomo wants to make it happen, he has the political muscle among the Senate and House to do so. No word yet on his willingness or desire to get involved with this issue.

One thing is quite certain, however. A LOT of work remains to be done (i.e., lobbying) if we want to make GMO-labeling in New York a reality.

However, if it were to happen, it would be a game-changer, almost in the same way that California would have been.

(Below is my interview with Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety, after the NY state GE-labeling hearings in this past August.)

FDA TO TAKE ACTION ON THE “NATURAL” LABEL?

In one of the most shameful moves that I have ever seen, the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), the major trade organization of Big Food, filed a petition with the FDA seeking approval to use the word “natural” on products that contain genetically-engineered ingredients.

The reason for this appeal?

Many major food companies, including Naked Juice (Pepsi) and Kashi (Kellogg’s), have faced or are facing class actions lawsuits for using the word “natural” on products that contain GMOs and/or synthetic substances.

Clearly, this move is a desperate attempt to fend off some of these lawsuits.

So far, the FDA has refused to define the word “natural” and has left it up to consumers to decide what “natural” means.

However, I don’t believe for one second that the GMA has filed this petition just “hoping” that the FDA will do something. I believe there is a plan in place with the FDA and that we could hear something in 2014.

Why is this story relevant to organic consumers?

Too many people continue to falsely believe that “natural” products are better than “organic” ones. Nothing could be further from the truth.

APPROVAL OF GE-SALMON

Despite the fact that nearly 2 million people have already told the FDA to reject genetically-engineered salmon, approval of this FrankenFish could take place in 2014.

Each year, the Obama administration seems to “punt” on deciding what to do with GE-salmon, but logic would dictate that a delay can’t go on forever. Therefore, don’t be surprised to see a decision on GE-salmon in 2014.

For the biotech companies, this is an enormous issue because blocking GE-salmon could not only result in delays or denials of other genetically-engineered animals, but it would be a huge setback for the entire industry, one that the Obama administration views as incredibly important.

For those of us against GE-salmon, this FrankenFish could ruin the ecosystem of the ocean forever and could breed with other fish, such as wild brown trout. Already, 59 retailers representing 4,662 grocery stores across the country have agreed not to sell GE-fish.

This is a dangerous product and is completely, completely unnecessary.

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Soft Killing The American People Using Toxic Food, Toxic Water And Toxic Vaccines

- By Michael Snyder - December 31, 2013

Have you noticed that there has been an absolute explosion in the number of people developing chronic illnesses, heart disease, diabetes and cancer?  If you are like most Americans, you probably have quite a few family members and friends that are seriously ill right now.  Sadly, most Americans have absolutely no idea why this is happening. 

Most of them just assume that all of this sickness is just “normal”.  But that is not the case at all.  The truth is that we are slowly killing ourselves by what we eat, by what we drink and by what we allow to be injected into our bodies.  The vast majority of people out there have never even heard about the dangers posed by aspartame, fluoride, genetically-modified food, pesticides, high fructose corn syrup, pharmaceutical drugs, cell phones and toxic vaccines.  Most of them have no idea that our food is toxic, our water is toxic and our vaccines are toxic.  Right now, it is estimated that approximately70,000 chemicals are being used for commercial purposes, and as a result of our “modern lifestyles” we are literally being endlessly bombarded with toxins.  This has resulted in a massive tsunami of death, disease and chronic illness in America.  But very few people actually understand what is being done to all of us.  The following are just a few of the ways that the “soft killing” of the American people is taking place…

Toxic Food

Do you believe that “you are what you eat”?

Well, have you ever considered what the animals that you eat are being fed?

If you are like most Americans, you will probably eat beef several times this week.  But most Americans have no idea that our cows are being fed sawdust, chicken poop, candy, crab guts, limestone and dead cows that have been ground up on a regular basis.

Of course this is not true of all beef that you purchase at the grocery store.

But how do you tell which is which?  And if you go for the lowest price beef, there is a greater chance that you are getting beef from cows that have literally been fed garbage.

And of course it isn’t just cows that are being fed poop.  The truth is that there is a tremendous amount of it in many of our food products.  If you doubt this, just check out this article: “There Is A Staggering Amount Of Feces In Our Food“.

Sometimes, it is the ingredients that are actually listed on the side of the box that are the most dangerous.  Take aspartame for example.  Once upon a time, it was listed as a biochemical warfare agent by the Pentagon.  But now it is in thousands of food products in our grocery stores.

So is it safe for us to eat?  According to an article on Mercola.com, it has a long track record of causing adverse reactions and the government refuses to do anything about it…

Aspartame accounts for over 75 percent of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to the FDA. Many of these reactions are very serious including seizures and death.  A few of the 90 different documented symptoms listed in the report as being caused by aspartame include: Headaches/migraines, dizziness, seizures, nausea, numbness, muscle spasms, weight gain, rashes, depression, fatigue, irritability, tachycardia, insomnia, vision problems, hearing loss, heart palpitations, breathing difficulties, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, loss of taste, tinnitus, vertigo, memory loss, and joint pain.

According to researchers and physicians studying the adverse effects of aspartame, the following chronic illnesses can be triggered or worsened by ingesting of aspartame:  Brain tumors, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, chronic fatigue syndrome, parkinson’s disease, alzheimer’s, mental retardation, lymphoma, birth defects, fibromyalgia, and diabetes.

Toxic Water

Do you know what is in the water that you drink?

If not, perhaps you should do some investigating.  According to one recent survey, our drinking water is absolutely littered with dangerous contaminants…

Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that an astounding one-third of U.S. water systems contain traces of at least 18 unregulated and potentially hazardous contaminants, many of which are linked to causing endocrine disruption and cancer.

Based on a nationwide survey of 25 unnamed water utilities, scientists found traces of the herbicide metolachlor, for instance, a pesticide commonly applied to conventional corn, soy, cotton, safflower, potato and other crops, as well as the heavy metal strontium, which is linked to causing bone problems. Other chemicals identified include so-called perfluorinated compounds like perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), which numerous scientific studies have found can cause thyroid disease and various types of cancer.

After reading all this, you may never look at water the same way again.

Do you remember Erin Brockovich?  Well, according to the Washington Postthe carcinogen that she was so concerned about has been found in the drinking water of most U.S. cities…

An environmental group that analyzed the drinking water in 35 cities across the United States, including Bethesda and Washington, found that most contained hexavalent chromium, a probable carcinogen that was made famous by the film “Erin Brockovich.”

Lovely, eh?

Not only is there hexavalent chromium in our drinking water, the reality of the matter is that there are thousands of other chemicals and prescription drugs in our water supply as a Time Magazine article from a while back detailed…

All told, there are about 3,000 prescription pharmaceuticals in use in the U.S. and thousands more over-the-counter drugs, not to mention creams and ointments we smear on and then shower off. “Between cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and other sources,” says John Spatz, commissioner of Chicago’s department of water management, “there are 80,000 potential combinations of chemicals.” It’s impossible to keep our drinking supply safe from a gusher like that.

And I haven’t even gotten to fluoride yet, which is purposely being put into the water supplies of most U.S. cities.

So precisely how dangerous is fluoride?  Well, the Fluoride Dangers blog puts it this way….

Even small amounts of fluoride consumed from tap water can damage your bones, teeth, brain, disrupt your thyroid function, lower IQ and/or cause cancer, according to evidence revealed in a groundbreaking 2006 National Research Council (NRC) fluoride report produced by a panel of experts who reviewed hundreds of published fluoride studies.

That certainly does not sound good.

So is fluoride in the water that you are drinking?

Perhaps you should find out.

The Natural Health and Longevity Resource Center has published a list of ten of the most significant health problems that scientific studies have shown that fluoride causes…

1. Fluoride exposure disrupts the synthesis of collagen and leads to the breakdown of collagen in bone, tendon, muscle, skin, cartilage, lungs, kidney and trachea.

2. Fluoride stimulates granule formation and oxygen consumption in white blood cells, but inhibits these processes when the white blood cell is challenged by a foreign agent in the blood.

3. Fluoride depletes the energy reserves and the ability of white blood cells to properly destroy foreign agents by the process of phagocytosis. As little as 0.2 ppm fluoride stimulates superoxide production in resting white blood cells, virtually abolishing phagocytosis. Even micro-molar amounts of fluoride, below 1 ppm, may seriously depress the ability of white blood cells to destroy pathogenic agents.

4. Fluoride confuses the immune system and causes it to attack the body’s own tissues, and increases the tumor growth rate in cancer prone individuals.

5. Fluoride inhibits antibody formation in the blood.

6. Fluoride depresses thyroid activity.

7. Fluorides have a disruptive effect on various tissues in the body.

8. Fluoride promotes development of bone cancer.

9. Fluorides cause premature aging of the human body.

10. Fluoride ingestion from mouth rinses and dentifrices in children is extremely hazardous to biological development, life span and general health.

For much, much more on this, please watch a documentary entitled “An Inconvenient Tooth” that you can find on YouTube right here.

Toxic Vaccines

Are the vaccines that you are allowing the doctors to inject into your children safe?

Today, in some areas of the country more than 30 vaccines are being given to young children before the age of 3.

30 vaccines.

That is absolute madness.

They are overloading the systems of these young babies with massive amounts of toxins and the results are predictable.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of children in the United States with autism has risen by 78 percent over the past decade.

I have personally read hundreds of testimonies of mothers losing their babies right after being vaccinated and children developing autism right after being vaccinated.  Yet the medical community continues to vigorously deny the connection.

But without a doubt, the evidence is mounting.  The following is an excerpt from a Huffington Post article about the danger of vaccines…

It’s a fact that many children with ASD regressed following normal development just as they were receiving multiple vaccines at regular doctor visits. Health officials say the timing is entirely coincidental.

Regression usually occurs between 12 and 24 months, thoughone study found that some children show signs of autism as early as six months, but never before that age.

By six months of age, most U.S. children have received about 18 inoculations containing 24 vaccines against nine diseases. Over the next two years or so, they will receive another nine shots containing 14 vaccines against 12 diseases.

So whether a child regresses at six months, or 18 months, the tragedy happens during a period of intensive vaccination. In many cases, parents report that the child had an abnormal reaction after being vaccinated (seizures, spiking-fevers, diarrhea, lethargy, high-pitched screaming and/or other symptoms).

Of course there will be many angry comments following this article denying that any of this is true.

And many of those making these comments will not even know what thimerosal is or why countries all over the planet have banned thimerosal from their vaccines.  The following comes from an article by Dawn Prate….

“In 1977, a Russian study found that adults exposed to ethylmercury, the form of mercury in thimerosal, suffered brain damage years later. Studies on thimerosal poisoning also describe tubular necrosis and nervous system injury, including obtundation, coma and death. As a result of these findings, Russia banned thimerosal from children’s vaccines in 1980. Denmark, Austria, Japan, Great Britain and all the Scandinavian countries have also banned the preservative”

So why is thimerosal not banned in the United States?

That is a very, very good question.

Unfortunately, in most states the authorities have doubled down on their efforts to force people to take these dangerous vaccines.  In fact, a pregnant nurse in Pennsylvania was just fired for refusing to take a flu vaccine.

It is time that the American people heard the truth.  You can find dozens of vaccine horror stories right here.  Do your own research and come to your own conclusions.  Don’t just blindly accept whatever the mainstream media tells you to believe.

And I don’t even have the space in this article to get into the study that showed a 40 percent increased risk of brain tumors from using cell phones, the connection between Wi-Fi and cancer, the chemtrails being sprayed all over the planet, or the incredible danger that genetically-modified food represents.

Without a doubt, an entire book could be written on how we are all being systematically poisoned.

So what do you think?

Is there anything that you would like to add to this discussion?

Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below…

This article was posted: Tuesday, December 31, 2013 at 5:24 am

Tags: domestic news, health, pharmaceutical, natural health, vaccines, early death

There is No Such Thing as a Safe Vaccine and there Never Will Be

- By Paul Fassa - Natural Society - December 22, 2013

Dr. Suzanne Humphries on Vaccines

Dr. Suzanne Humphries, a practicing nephrologist (kidney physician) says the vaccine industry is not giving people both sides of the story, and parents need to get informed before subjecting their children to vaccines that can potentially cause serious harm or even death.

Making vaccines safe by removing their toxins (greening), or telling people they have a right to look at vaccine ingredients before deciding whether to vaccinate or not may be the politically correct form of vaccination resistance. It does help avoid some of the wrath from vaccination high priests. However, the very nature of our immune systems and what vaccinations do to artificially stimulate immunity makes safe vaccinating an oxymoron.

The Fallacy and Dangers of Artificial Immune Stimulation

Bypassing our normal immune system pathway and inserting an artificial immune response stimulant (vaccination) with or without added toxins has inherent dangers. Few articulate this better than Dr. Suzanne Humprhies.

“The doctor was never taught in medical school how to take care of an immune system, so what you end up with is a whole society, from start to finish, that doesn’t know how an immune system works, that doesn’t know how to take care of it, does not know how to replenish the nutrients and minerals that are needed, when it fails, it’s God’s fault. We need a vaccine. They think Mother Nature is flawed.”

Dr. Humphries explains further that the only thing a vaccine accomplishes as an immune response is the appearance of an antibody, and an antibody is only one small aspect of all the human immunity factors. Injecting diseased matter through the skin into the blood bypasses the normal immune system and creates an immune imbalance that can, and often does, result in infection from the disease it purports to protect.

Read: Exposing the Vaccination for Immunity Fraud

Dr. Humphries also discusses how infants have a developing immune system. A healthy mother’s breast milk offers the most protection during the baby’s first year (as much as 80% protection), largely by supporting intestinal flora. Injecting them with contaminants within the first few months presents both immediate and long term damage to their developing immune systems.

Other immunity disruptions occur from vaccinations. The result of inter-reacting vaccine ingredients cascading through one’s body is often ill health effects hat show up later if not sooner. The facts are that the USA has the largest childhood vaccination schedule, yet ranks higher in infant mortality and poor childhood health than all other developed nations.

This deathbed statement reportedly made by Pasteur is ignored by the medical mafia: “Bernard (Bechamp) was right; the pathogen is nothing; the terrain is everything.” Unfortunately, killing and artificially “protecting” against germs is more profitable. The trade-off for this illusion of immunity is increased auto-immune disease , vaccine injury, permanent disability, and death.