CAFOnated Meats, Eggs and Dairy

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are a highly destructive method of food production and is simply animal slavery. Chances are,  in CAFO-concentrated Ohio, CAFO expansions and new construction will likely double in the next five years . . . unless something is done quickly. The turning point for me was to see the video on the 32,000-cow confined dairy in Indiana. I would be much in favor of implementing massive DeCAFOnation programs setting those animals free.

Read DeCAFOnated Meats, Eggs and Dairy at the new Journal.

A Horse Eats Cheeseburgers at Fast Food Drive-up (3-min hilarious video)

Patches on the way to McDonald's

Four Feet for Fast Meat

Who woulda thunk? Patches dudn’t care for Coke, but this horse likes daily drives in a convertible, cheeseburgers from a fast-food drive-up window . . . and apple juice! You will surely want to share this (buttons below). Laughter is the best medicine! — Augie

We need more horses, goats and cows in the new ARMi. Now, you and your farm animals can freely register 4-F and join the new ARMi. 4-F is Family Farm Food Freedom (in the real Army means “unfit to serve”). There is a hot free sample of Living Food in the mess hall after you sign up for free. Quit horsing around: grab the old ladies, pack of the babies, hop on your horses and moove to freely register 4-F with the new ARMi.

 

 

 

The SHARE buttons are below!

Troubled Waters: Death of the Lakes from Toxic Wastes Used as Farm Fertilizers

I am reposting Part 1 of Death of the Lakes by author David Michael. Part 1 focuses on Grand Lake in Celina and St. Mary’s Ohio. But this situation is escalating in all parts of the U.S. Part 2 is coming by Friday, according to David Michael, and it will cover the law suits, deaths and illnesses, politics and corruption about the spreading of the sludge.–Augie

Human illnesses and animal deaths have occurred recently from neurotoxins secreted by a heavy slime of blue and green algae floating on Ohio’s largest lake—Grand Lake St. Mary’s (Grand Lake) in Auglaize and Mercer Counties. This is a lake that has been deteriorating for decades, but especially so in the past 10 years as factory farms have sprung up all over the area, and more are being built.

A high concentration of factory farms and the application of composted manure from CAFO (confined animal feeding operations) manure and sewage treatment sludge (humanure, now called biosolids—a mixture of concentrated human excrement and industrial discharges) is spreading toxic and infectious substances on farmlands close by and in the watershed. CAFOs in the watershed area account for 3 million chickens; while sewage sludge spreading is permitted on 8800 Ohio farmlands—several close to the edge of Grand Lake.

Continue to the original story and comments here at the Journal. Be looking forward to Part 2 on Friday. Subscribe for the update!

War of the Words — Eating the Greens & Naturally Sustainable Organic Foods

War of the Words — Eating the Greens and Naturally Sustainable Organic Foods

I have referred to the War of the Words several times in my talks and conversations –and it seems to resonate, so I will expound here. There is some intended sarcasm also.– Augie

Scribble Scrabble Scramble

Make Up Your Own Words

Government, corporate and academia change-makers are  always defining and redefining our words for us. “Water” for example may have different meanings depending on the specific laws or regulations the word is set within. Redefinition is an age-old practice to manipulate people and take control. As soon as you understand one word defined, you can be sure its definition has already been changed. Attorneys love it.

Organic comes to mind. If you search the Journal you will not find me using the term– as I have a distaste for it– like organic CAFO-type factory farmed chickens and eggs. The word has caused so much confusion and frustration– I don’t like to use it. USDA stole the term from the grassroots and twisted it to where can mean a battery of concentration camps of 250,000 chickens or even a million–voila, most of your organic chickens and eggs at the supermarket. Funny, pesticides and herbicides are organic too.

Empires of Food–Feast, Famine and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations

Kathryne Pirtle is a musician, author, nutrition educator and food activist. She is also a Chicago correspondent for the Journal and a Weston A. Price Foundation co-chapter leader. Kathryne just put out her review of a new book relating to the government control of land versus a land of liberty for  agriculture and food production–how it relates to prosperity versus destruction of a society.

For all of our new readers, I want to emphasize that the living food (true food as some call it) with its naturally optimal nutrient density is proportionately related to the soil fertility– including plants and animals. This comes in having the freedom to nurture the soil versus slowly destroying it through manufactured chemicals and toxic concentrated human, hospital,  industrial and factory-farm wastes all called green. Some extracts follow (not of the wastes, the book review!) and I hope you go to her blog to finish it. Someone famous said the wealth of a nation is in direct proportion to its soil fertility.

Before I take up more space than her in my diatribe, let’s hear Kathryne.–Augie

Book Review: Empires of Food–Feast, Famine and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations

by Kathryne Pirtle

Book by Evan D.G. Fraser and Andrew Rimas (Pub. by Free Press, 2010)

Empires of Food is a fascinating book that certainly reveals the old adage that “history repeats itself.” As we moved away from the hunter-gatherer paradigm to that of civilization, man has often been deceived by the pursuit of progress. From the Mayan,

Read more and buy here

Greek and Roman empires to our present day society, many urban societies have mistakenly sought development through monoculture–an agricultural system that depends on limited crops like wheat, corn and soybeans.

However, these agricultural systems have always suffered grave consequences:

“These societies, these food empires, can only exist if three things happen: Farmers need to grow more food than they eat; they need a means of trading it to willing buyers; they need a way to store it so it doesn’t turn to sludge before reaching its economic apotheosis. When these three premises are met, urban life flourishes. Which is, in itself, the seed of the problem…When a food empire fails, mobs tear apart the marketplace, angry over the cost of bread. Governments raise armies to conquer greener, more fertile valleys. People uproot. Forest creeps back over old fences. Arable land falls into disuse, and society contracts. It happens again and again. And it’s happening now…..”

Read the entire review at Kathryne’s Performance Without Pain blog.

Also . . .

The iShop is NOW OPEN! Browse around! NEWLY published book called 30 Days to Wellness is now next to the checkout. A Christmas gift for children and grandchildren: Healthy Kids Recipe eCards (hard cards coming soon). See if you can find them under our  iShop at livingfood.us !

The Santa Clause and the Food & Farm Control Bill Snagged: Fishing to Control Small Family Farms and Real Food Producers?

The Santa Clause and the Gift of the Magi-cians.

The so-called Food Safety Control S510 bill with the so-called savior Tester-Hagan amendments may now be passed back to the overwhelming approving Senate. This is a perfect example of hard-ball politics of division, where half the food freedom folks are for it and half against it. Typically, federal control bills are written to appease large  stakeholders, then revised to include most stakeholders, changed several times in the process, including having several bills of different names.

In this battle, the war on food controls by the corporate/government  partnership, the magic trick is to appear to save the small farms producing local foods, yet provide the legal and regulatory framework, with funding, to take it all way. So once again it appears to be an angel of light, a white knight on a horse coming to save the small farm, and getting the foodies to work on the language for them so that end the end, the language can be twisted and used against them.

Descrambling the Eggs and It Won’t Be Over Easy!

Humpty Dumpty Has Taken a Great Fall!

I have wanted to comment on the egg situation the day after the half-billion recall. First, I wanted to say that these types of contaminated eggs are commonplace– the reason, in part, 1 in 4 Americans get a case of food-borne illness each year. It is similar to the leafy green problem–where the spinach and such are grown in concentrated human, industrial and hospital wastes–called biosolids out in the California Salad Bowl. It was frustrating holding back the article– I wanted to have the cute picture of Humpty Dumpty– and the title I had in mind for weeks. But it all came together a few minutes ago!

Two weeks ago Mark Kastel, director of the prestigious Cornucopia Institute, sent me photos of the USDA-certified organic egg operations– from factory farms or concentation camps– accounting for a good 80% of organic eggs sold at supermarkets. He encouraged me to publish something. Yesterday he posted a brilliant 4-minute video that says it all. Now, I need not write the article.– Augie

As he says and is plain to see, the egg cartel has taken over nearly all of the production, using their mass scale operations to drive the price down which forces more real egg producers out of the business. (It is the same economic disparity and health benefit comparison with grocery store milk and farm fresh, unprocessed, whole milk– or raw milk direct from the farm).

I know you will NOT buy organic eggs from the store– buy only eggs from farmers that have pastured hens fed natural feed. But your friends and coworkers, church folk and neighbors need to understand how this fraud and deception works–and how  it affects your health and the health of the chickens and eggs– the so-called organic takeover by the USDA and its corporate partners.  They should be fried hard and to a crisp. SHARE this story with them now using this link       http://wp.me/phmll-1di    in Facebook, twitter, lists and other social networks!

Get more info on the egg story at The Cornucopia Institute.

Living Food, our new paper bulletin at http://ishop.livingfood.us/.– is a way for you to support our work and we give a free sample before you are asked to give $10.

The much delayed iShop of the Journal will be up and running in October and offers you some of the best in eBooks for instant downloadable health and nutrition!

Subscribe to the Journal

Superbugs in Factory-farmed Meats

Dead Hogs, Flies and Maggots at a Factory Farm

An AP article headlined Pressure Rises to Stop Antibiotics in Agriculture made the front page today that will help to educate consumers about the type of factory-farm meat they are eating. With the heavy use of antibiotics, the chickens, pigs and cows develop dangerous organisms in and on their infection-suppressed carcasses and end up on the dinner plate. This has long known been a reason for creation of superbugs and antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria , but it is good to see this information is going more mainstream; and, all the more reason to eat naturally raised beef, chickens, pork and other meats.

The article does not cover the hazards of genetically-engineered feed or cloned animals, but ironically the story is from show-me-state town of Frankenstein, Missouri. Here are some excerpts:

Researchers say the overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals has led to a plague of drug-resistant infections that killed more than 65,000 people in the U.S. last year — more than prostate and breast cancer combined. And in a nation that used about 35 million pounds of antibiotics last year, 70 percent of the drugs went to pigs, chickens and cows. Worldwide, it’s 50 percent.

Animal Farm 2009– Ohio Issue 2

Animal Farm 2009

by Augie

There are three cute videos below– including Animal Farm, The Meatrix and Store Wars which help to get the Vote NO on Issue 2 message across.

An Ohio constitutional amendment will be on the November ballot to create a Board for Livestock Care Standards. It will develop farm animal care and feeding standards to create rules to be enforced by the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) The board will also consider agricultural best management practices, biosecurity on livestock farms, animal disease prevention, food safety and food production economics. See our entire series on the potential Animal Care and Feeding laws.

According to a number of sources, Issue 2 is meant for all farm animals and all farms. But is it meant for the Factory Farms and CAFOs? Not really.

Based on what is known, it seems like this could be “one small step for Little Chicken, one giant leap for Big Pig”— after all, as in George Orwell’s Animal Farm:

“all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”.

Command Operations Center: Ohio–Issue 2 Arsenal

Grab this Hot Button

NEW Oct 22– Farm and Food Monopoly Cards — an Ohio Power Play

NEWEST AND MOST POWERFUL WEAPON: These are real nifty Farm Monopoly Card handouts for farmers markets, farm and health food stores everywhere. Quick and cheap, these little tricks get the powerful message out that a NO vote is good for the small farmer and those that want to feed on fresh farm food and everyone else who eats. Make an Ohio Power Play with these bad boys.

Print out and handout. Better yet, give a bunch to the farm stores and health food stores so they can give them out. Includes a link back to our Issue 2 Series at the Journal. GET THEM HERE.Animal Farm 2009 and Facts about Issue 2, Small Farm Association Statements and Reader Commentary are now located here.

Ohio Farm Wars Now Raging

IMPORTANT: This is one of the Command Operations Centers set up throughout Ohio to help support ground troops and dozens of farming, food and freedom organizations fight against Issue 2 , gaining nationwide attention. Now is the time to launch your own offensive using this arsenal of weapons while Big Ag launches a multimillion-dollar media campaign, now underway to mislead the public. Their campaign is paid for by the agricultural government/corporate partnership (and thousands of uninformed farmers who really want to do the right thing!)

Now watch in real time, the cities and towns in Ohio and around the U.S. where hits are being made with this arsenal of informational weapons. Go to the live monitoring page here.

CURRENT BRIEFING: These are just a few of the key points you need to know about Issue 2 contained in our other documents here at the Journal. This statement is provided by Food and Water Watch:

“In the most ambitious power grab we’ve ever seen, corporate agribusiness proponents are trying to write themselves into the Ohio constitution.

Technically the product of the Ohio General Assembly, the ballot issue is heavily backed by groups representing major agribusiness interests, including the Ohio Farm Bureau, the Ohio Pork Producers Council, and the Ohio Cattlemen’s Association. While masquerading as an attempt to improve food safety and animal welfare, Issue 2 would give a board of political appointees unchecked power to decide any and all regulations related to animal agriculture. The board could make decisions that would radically shift policy in any direction and would not require any public input process. This could include decisions on issues like the use of antibiotics and growth hormones, genetically engineered animals, cloned animals, animal ID and traceability, and factory farm zoning regulations.

The proponents of Issue 2 literally will be the foxes guarding the  henhouse if Issue 2 passes, and they’re running a multi-million dollar campaign to make sure this happens. Worse yet, their slick campaign tries to trick voters into thinking that Issue 2 will support safe, local food from small farmers. We need you to help us get the truth out about Issue 2 and stop this greedy power grab in the Ohio Constitution.”

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HERE is the current inventory in our arsenal of informational weapons:

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The easiest and most important thing you can do right now is SHARE this Command Operations Center page with your social networks and email lists so that they too can be well equipped and get involved in the action. Use the button below:

Farm and Food Monopoly Cards — an Ohio Power Play

NEWEST AND MOST POWERFUL WEAPON: These are real nifty Farm Monopoly Card sized handouts for farmers markets  and farm and health food stores everywhere. Quick and cheap, these little tricks get the powerful message out that a NO vote is good for the small farmer and those that want to feed on fresh farm food and everyone else who eats. Make an Ohio Power Play with these bad boys.

Print out and handout. Better yet, give a bunch to the farm stores and health food stores so they can give them out. Includes a link back to our Issue 2 Series at the Journal. GET THEM HERE.

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Grab it. Use it.

HOT BUTTON

This is the one to get so YOU can distribute your HOT BUTTONS on the internet!

From Ohio WAPF/Ohio Connections. This is the button to get for your website, blog, facebook, twitters and other social networks.

The logo is hyperlinked back to this page of the Journal, one of the many Command Operations Centers cropping up all over Ohio,  so your friends can also get in on the action to STOP Issue 2.

Grab it. Copy or Save As and then go. (Just make sure the link works on your copy)