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Safe Food & Clean Water

fascismposter Safe, nutritious food and clean water are the foundations of life. One would think that guaranteeing access to these basic resources would be our highest priority. Unfortunately, large corporations and governments (research fascism & neofeudalism) are waging war on safe food and are moving to control food on every level worldwide including claiming intellectual property rights on all seed. Food is being leveraged as a means of control over our lives.

If you spend a little time digging around, you’ll find that food is deeply connected to so many important issues including our energy crisis, water crisis, ballooning national health costs, geopolitics (war), freedom stealing legislation, nutrition crisis (obesity, diabetes, cancer and other nutrition related diseases), etc. For example, I was amazed to discover that industrial food production is one of the leading contributors to the contamination of fresh water supplies and coastal fishing zones. Turns out cheap food is actually pretty expensive!

Apparently, there is big money to be made by big multi-national companies through the total control of food. There is also a lot of money to be made from sicknesses caused by poor nutrition. There is a lot of money to be made from debt created by medical costs. There is a lot of money to be made by indebting all farmers (seed, herbicides, pesticides and equipment are expensive). And there is a lot of money to be made waging war. With cap and trade, there is going to be big money made from pollution. When money flows encourage these behaviors, we will see more and more of these things.

It seems that large corporations and governments are focused on money and power and have lost touch with the the heart of God (a high value for every person). I see at root a spiritual problem here. Belief in justice, truth, freedom and mercy have given way to their opposites. Humans are no longer considered inherently valuable worthy of inherent rights granted by our Maker. Instead, powerful institutions and individuals see humans as the means to an end (more power and profits). People are markets, they are consumers, they are debt slaves, they are labor to be exploited, they are lab rats, they are sex objects, they are pawns in war and they are a threat to be eliminated if they fight the system or if they grow too numerous.

I’m not sure what to call this spirit (I generically call it Babylon), but it is alive and well today and has always been with us. This spirit will not rest until all the earth’s resources and all people are under its control.

What’s the Good News?

With every crisis comes opportunity. We can take personal responsibility to better our lives. We can grow our own food, we can choose to buy organic, we can support local growers and we can organize with others we trust and love to build awareness in the context of relationships.

I am not optimistic about trying to change anything from the top down. I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to fight on that level, but I am realizing that every dollar I spend sends a more effective message. My dollars are my votes. My money (in addition to prayer and power to choose) is my greatest weapon against large destructive corporations/governments and can be used to invest in my quality of life and into my local community. If we can build grass roots level movements toward safe, locally grown organic food, in time many corporations and politicians will listen and will make positive changes.

As Catherine Austin Fitts often says, “Don’t worry if there is a conspiracy…if you are not part of one, you’d better start one.” Will you conspire with me?

Key Issues

Food is highly dependent on oil and we are approaching an energy crisis (peak oil). That means we are approaching a food crisis.
Genetically modified seed and the absolute monopoly of seed. We are losing the right to save seed and grow our own food.
Poor food quality and resulting health issues.
Environmental problems brought about by industrial agriculture.
Risks inherent in mono-culture farming practices. The destruction of bio diversity and regionally adapted seed.
Disease problems due to antibiotics given to animals and ecoli generation caused by feeding animals corn.
Dangerous products passed onto the consumer (ie rBST in milk).
Herbicides and pesticides can’t be good for us.
Additives and preservatives can’t be good for us.
Revolving doors between the FDA and corporations like Monsanto guarantee that our health is not being protected by government.
Small farmers are being destroyed all over the world.
Billions of people are being forced off rural lands into urban slums.

Free Online Food & Water Documentaries/Lectures

There are a lot of very useful documentaries and other free resources online that help shed light on what is happening in the realm of food.

Other resources

What is Locally Grown Organic Food?

The idea is to find food that hasn’t been sprayed with all sorts of herbicides, pesticides & fertilizers. Animals are free range & grass fed (vs. caged & corn fed). Milk products should be rBST/rBGH free.
Avoid genetically modified food (GMO). This can be tough to do since labels are not currently required and 90% of corn, soy, sugar, cotton and canola are now GMO.
Avoid additives and preservatives.
Find food grown here in SoCal or Central Valley (your local area).

Why Organic Food?

Its healthier (you are not slowly poisoning yourself to death). It tastes better. Good nutrition builds the immune system and provides the body what it needs to regenerate properly (lowering risk of cancer). We can’t solve our energy, water, health and other problems without addressing the way we do food. The bottom line…providing for ourselves healthy food and water is the most basic of all human rights.

Why Locally Grown Food?

We have a serious energy problem and a lot of our energy goes into food. The average meal travels 2000 miles to your plate. The average 1 calorie of produce takes over 10 calories of fossil fuel to produce and 1 calorie of meat takes over 50 calories of energy to produce. Local organic growing is the easiest way to go solar and achieve greater sustainability moving forward.

To learn a bit more about the impact of oil on food:

How Cuba Survived Peak Oil – shows how Cuba coped with the loss of their oil imports from the Soviet Union in the early 90s.

Peak Oil Interview With Matt Simmons – Matt is widely considered to be one of the leading experts in the world of oil. His research has led him to the conclusion that we have or will soon reach peak production of oil and will see declines of about 6% in our production here on out.

The Oil We Eat – following the food chain back to Iraq. This one does a good job providing hard data on how much energy goes into food production.

A Crude Awakening – The Oil Crash – The documentary examines our dependence on oil, showing how oil is essential for almost every facet of our modern lifestyle, from driving to work to clothing and clean tap water. A Crude Awakening asks the tough question, “What happens when we run out of cheap oil?”

Safe Food Sources

Here are some resources for learning more about GMOs and how to avoid them:

Safe Food Guide – How to avoid foods made with genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Bytestyle GMO Resources – Top 6 Ways to Identify & Avoid GMO Foods.
Bytestyle Directory of GMO-Free Brands
Avoiding GMO in Restaurants

Here are some ideas for finding safe food:

Farmers Markets (find one near you)
Cooportunity Market (map) (good source)
Paradise O (organic produce delivered to your home, not local)
Wholefoods (organic but most not local)
Trader Joes (some organic, probably not local)
Others? (please share)

Organic foods are more expensive than industrial foods if you only look at price you pay at checkout. However, if you add in the health costs, energy costs and all the other hidden costs of industrial agriculture, I think organic comes out way ahead.

Water Filtration

I bought a Berkey Light gravity water filter. After doing a food color test, I discovered that one of the two filters was not working right so they sent me a replacement. After both filters passed the food color test, the water tastes great and at $209 for 6,000 gallons of good drinking water, I’m very pleased. This site has the best pricing I could find and they have a lot of helpful information regarding the Berkey systems and water filtration in general.

http://www.bigberkeywaterfilters.com

I also bought a shower filter to try to reduce my exposure to the chlorine, heavy metals, etc. in city water. I recently learned that our bodies absorb a lot of crap from the water we bathe in so it made sense to put down $65 to attempt to reduce this. I did a fair amount of research and settled on this Sprite model. It was affordable and had a long lasting filter. It installed in about two minutes and is a much better shower head vs. what I had before. I’m actually using less water now which is another plus.

ARA5-CT Sprite Industries Showerhead

Emergency Food Sources

I see a lot of systemic risks building in our food system. We risk a dollar crisis, a banking holiday, a failure of GMO crops/large mono-culture fields, an oil crisis, swine flu, terrorism and who knows what else. Our food distribution system runs on just in time inventories. What happens if food stops flowing (grocery stores have about a 3 days supply on hand)?

I looked at the risks and made a decision to invest in a food stock pile. It was a common sense decision for me. As an investor, I see that stockpiling makes a lot of sense in an inflationary environment (which we will be entering into more obviously in the near future). I hope to never need it but I’m glad I have it.

I found a couple solid providers of emergency food supply. DailyBread.com has a long shelf life (25 years +) product that I tasted personally and liked. This product is not organic but I’m OK with that in a pinch.

I also found an organic solution that is more work to maintain but I am sure would be a good solution as well.

Efoodsdirect.com

It can also be a good idea to stockpile non perishables. If you’ll use it and have a place to store it safely, it will most likely make a better investment than putting the money in the stock market over the course of the next 5 to 15 years.

Global Implications

I’ve heard some interesting interpretations about what is going on with food worldwide. The general idea is that the G8 countries / multi-nationals are moving out of energy (oil) into food as the means to maintain their global power. They are accomplishing this through free trade policies, GMO/intelectual property legislation and farming subsidies here in the US. Basically, the world’s farmers cannot compete economically with multi-national subsidized farming corporations and are being forced to adopt our technology or move off the land into urban slums (mass migration of billions of people).

It looks like the G8 want to force worldwide dependence on food exports from the US and GMO products like seed and weed killer provided by multi-national corporations like Monsanto. I am also hearing about international policies to make it illegal for farmers to save their own seed. The seed, equipment, fuel, pesticides, fertilizeers and herbicides required to run GMO farms are driving farmers into immense debt and put them at great risk if crops fail.

I see this benefiting the power elites in US and Europe. I also see it benefiting the corrupt elite in 3rd world countries. This whole setup is horribly unjust and unsafe for 99.9% of the world’s population.

Catherine Austin Fitts – Catherine has put forward the integrated idea of the pro-centralization team/power elite using food as power. Everything makes a lot more sense when you see it in the proper context.

James Goldsmith – a 1994 interview on the effects of globalization in regards to food, mass migration to urban slums. This guy was right on target with where all this would lead.

Urban Farming / Sustainability Movement

We’re seeing a major movement toward urban homesteads, lawn conversions, community gardens, organic foods and urban farming. This is very encouraging. Hopefully legislation before Congress does not destroy this movement.

I’m personally excited to explore urban farming as a means to provide an alternative economy providing jobs for the urban poor.

Starting & Funding a Community Garden

We are hard at work starting a community garden in Pomona, CA. Here are some of the resources we have pulled together for this project.

14 Good Reasons for a Community Garden

Fundraising planning guide

General Plans & Zoning

Economic Development Resources to Improve Access to Healthy Food

Community Garden Policies

Funding

NC State University – Website by NC State University on creating a community garden and funding resources & grants.

GardenBurger -Gardenburger website with ideas and grant monies available for next year. This site features a man who started a garden in New York.

Seattle.gov – This page has information regarding Magnuson Community Garden and Park a larger scale project that is not yet completed here in Seattle. It may give you some more ideas on businesses to tackle with matching grants/donations etc. It may even have a point of contact that you could e-mail with questions.

Oregon State University – Oregon State University write up on funding their community garden efforts

Free Seeds Grant – America The Beautiful webpage listing how to get free seeds to start a community garden project and the follow up once the grant is received.