The Food, Inc. Horror Movie

Greetings from "My Right to Safe Food"

When I watched this documentary a while back, I was horrified, it left me feeling outraged. Worse still to see the plight of a courageous young mother fighting a legal battle seeking justice when the fate of her two year old child was sealed after consuming a hamburger! You may not wish to believe this, then watch this staggering documentary Food, Inc, if you have not already done so.

This is the plight of gullible consumers all over the globe who knowingly or unknowingly leave their fate to the mercy of a handful of MNC's who dictate our food chain. Each day I watch zillions throng the dubious Fast Food chains striding there with such gusto. Not the slightest of doubt inhibits these consumers be it nutrition nor the safety aspect instead they ingest what is being dished out with much pride. While the West is being cautious, the East is adapting to their unhealthy patterns with such ease. The attitude is "After all they are reputed brands Mac Donalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut and more....so it must be safe!"

The poorest people are worst hit and hurt because fast processed is cheap food, artificially cheapened by a relentless drive for cost-cutting and efficiency-saving including the maltreatment of workers and animals. As for our country, adulteration of almost the entire food chain is taking new leaps....lentils notoriously mixed with fodder grains cheaply imported. So, if the prices drop, there is tendency to believe that the woes are being heard by crafty policy makers.

Farmers in our country, who once was the pride, now reduced to a begging bowl is so insignificant. Yet I am frequently asked about their welfare in my sessions " If the farmers accept Bt Cotton seeds or for that matter high yielding hybrid seeds and benefits from them, then, why are farmers committing suicides? My answer - The marketing rationale used by the muscle of industry is bound to succeed no matter what the end product is. A direct marketing approach is applied " Offer FREE (sterile) seeds along with corresponding FREE pesticides/herbicides for a season or a year with value additions of "service with a smile" an offer of technical support till such crop yields. Both the soil and seeds by then are so contaminated, with this carrot dangled the lured gullible farmer thinks " BENEFITS"only. So off he goes back to the seed corporate for his seeds the following year expecting the same service, only to discover that he now has a choice either to extol a ludicrous amount (take credit) to purchase seeds along with the corresponding chemicals or Hang himself. That is how suicides happen.

As for consumers - you are left to wonder where the equation has gone wrong? Why the escalating price rise? Why does one have to dole out more? Simple - A once self contained and sustainable economy is now fast reduced to an importing economy. When you import, you hasten unemployment. With a faulty farm policy by the so called custodians of our country, whose faulty vision is to drive farmers, fast out of their fields. Thereon, their land is usurped in the name of progress in science and technology!

As for publicity - the media, government, MNC's ensure that one gets to read and hear only such stories that fill their coffers and not that of the farmers! While consumers suffer price hikes in essential food commodities, since time needed to educate themselves on the source of food is of little consequence, therefore the choice is none other than face the onslaught of diseases.

Following which, a whole chain of industries vastly stand to benefit with this magnanimous generous support to build the empire of pharmacies, hospitals and the insurance companies who laugh their way to their banks. Why blame anyone for it?

When the power house of energies "your bodies and minds" is treated like a dustbin, then what is to be expected? This voice of reason and anger is dead. A scary plight.

As mentioned below "Food, Inc. ends on a hopeful note that consumers can change things through purchasing power. After all, Wall Mart, the world’s top retailer, has taken the lead in rejecting recombinant bovine growth hormone milk because the customers don’t like it. And it is now stocking organic grass-fed meat because the customers want it. So, it is down to consumer choice and triumph of the ‘free-market’; an altogether too rosy view.".

Wake up, watch out and take charge of your food

In solidarity

Sangita Sharma
http://myrighttosafefood.blogspot.com/
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The Food, Inc. Horror Movie

A film that exposes how the corporate food industry sickens and enslaves the nation, but leaves many stones unturned. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

A fully referenced version of this review is posted on ISIS members’ website and may be downloaded here

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Food on film: The poster for filmmaker Robert Kenner's 'Food, Inc.' features a bar-coded cow

Modern Times taken to logical conclusion

It looks like a scene from Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 movie Modern Times, only worse. The assembly lines process factory-farmed chicken carcasses, hog carcasses, and gigantic extrusions of ground up cattle to feed the supermarket shelves and the fast-growing fast food industry. The workers are illegal immigrants bussed in from Mexico or elsewhere, paid inhuman wages, and then turned in to the police when surplus to requirement.

Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Kenner’s documentary Food, Inc. [1], nominated for the 82nd Academy Awards, is intent on exposing the graphic horrors of the food we eat, starting in the USA.

The narrators are well-known food critics and journalists: Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation. They take us on a forbidden journey behind the sanitized cling film-wrapped packages of meat and gleaming tomatoes.

We are inside a henhouse stuffed solid with chickens, having found the only farmer brave enough to show it on film and risk offending the corporations that sell farmers the housing and buy the chickens raised. Our depressed, “beyond caring” but defiant farmer says she has had to use such large quantities of antibiotics that she herself has become “immune” to them.

We spy cattle feedlots out in the open, equally crowded with animals unable to move; we catch a furtive glimpse of a horribly crippled cow about to meet its fate in the slaughterhouse lot.

Hens, hogs, cattle, all meat-producing machines spending the best part of their nasty, brutish and short lives knee-deep in their own faeces till they are mercifully culled; and before they collapse under their own weight or from some unknown illness. It’s enough to turn your stomach, if not turn you into a vegan outright.

But wait, things can be difference

An idyllic scene of contented cows grazing in green pastures on a farm in Virginia; the farmer tells you cows are herbivores meant to eat grass. “They don’t eat corn or dead cows or chicken manure.” He says. Hogs and chickens roam freely and happily. All animals are slaughtered right there out in the open, and sold direct to customers, one man having driven 5 hours for the privilege.

The authorities tried to close the farm down, but the farmer had scientists test the animals and certify that his had ten times less bacteria than those in the big slaughterhouse.

What’s so bad about grain-fed cows?

One of the consequences of feeding grain such as corn to cows is that because grain is not easy to digest, it remains in the stomach and grow bacteria, including the deadly E. coli 0157. A two year-old boy died after eating an infected hamburger. It led to the recall of enough ground beef to feed the whole nation. Remember the assembly line where tonnes of ground cattle are made into hamburger patties? One infected cow contaminates the whole lot.

Fast-food & the obesity epidemic

Food-borne illnesses like E. coli and Salmonella outbreaks are on the rise, but they pale in comparison to the obesity epidemic that has gripped the nation, and indeed the globe, whenever and wherever the fast food industry has infiltrated. And it is the poorest people who get hurt the most because fast food is cheap food, artificially cheapened by a relentless drive for cost-cutting and efficiency-saving including the maltreatment of workers and animals, by corporate control and consolidation of the food chain, and by huge public subsidies on agriculture.

The scene cuts to an American Latino family of four with only one dollar to spend on lunch but must pay hundreds on drugs each month to keep the father’s illness under control. Yes, cheap fast food does make you obese and obesity is the single most important risk factor for diabetes, also an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease and cancer. As fast food consumption increases, so obesity rises in all age and ethnic groups, and most worrying, type 2 diabetes appears in children and adolescents.

Why does fast food make people fat? It is high in all the usual culprits: sugar, fats, carbohydrates, salt and numerous artificial additives and food colourings [2] (Food Colouring Confirmed Bad for Children. Food Standards Agency Refuses to Act , SiS 36). However, further investigations on my part revealed that a ubiquitous ingredient in fast food, monosodium glutamate, used as flavour enhancer and appetite stimulant, actually increased weight gain in mice and humans. That is just one among many other pieces of relevant information left out of the film (see Box), which completes the devastating picture of the false profits and true costs of food incorporated.

Corporate agri- and food business in the USA accounts for more than 12 percent of the nation’s GDP. It is subsidized by the taxpayer at $180 billion a year, some 12 percent of the sector’s total value. A quick calculation indicates that 83.3 percent of the subsidies go to the big agribusiness and food corporations, and only 16.7 percent go to the farmers, making up half of the farmers’ net income.

Cheap food is profitable for corporations, but the price is steep for the rest of society, quite apart from the subsidies. Food borne illnesses are estimated to cost more than $35 billion a year in medical care and lost productivity. But that is dwarfed by obesity, estimated at US $140 billion a year in extra medical spending alone, not counting lost productivity due to illnesses and deaths.

False profits and true costs of food inc

Global food retails sales are about $4 trillion annually, with supermarkets/hypermarkets accounting for the largest share of sales (more than 50 percent).

Walmart is world’s top retailer [3]

The US food and fibre market contributed $1.24 trillion, or 12.3 percent to US GDP and accounted for 16.7 percent of its total employment in 2001 [4]

In 2005, the US government paid $180 billion in direct and indirect subsidies to agriculture (equivalent to 11.8 percent of the total food and fibre market that year). This consisted of more than $30 billion in direct payments to US farmers, and $150 billion indirect subsidies, including tax breaks on fuel and equipment, tariffs, protective pricing, drought loss payments and purchasing surpluses. The biggest recipients are the largest corporate farmers and commodity giants like Cargill and ADM, agrichemical and seed suppliers like Monsanto and Dupont, Fanjui family’s Florida Crystals sugar empire and meat producers Tyson and Smithfield [5].

According to Daniel T. Gristwold, director of the Center for Trade Policy of the libertarian think tank Cato Institute, over the past 20 years, farm programmes have cost US non-farm households a cumulative $1.7 trillion [6]

Net farm income is forecast to be US$63 billion in 2010, up $6.7 billion (11.8 percent) from 2009, but $1.4 below the average of $64.5 billion in the previous 10 year [7]

James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank (1995-2005), estimated the total annual global agricultural subsidy at $350 billion, nearly $1 billion a day, representing 50 percent of net farm income in the US and the EU. If subsidies were not in place, US farmers would need to double their prices to make a living [5]

· USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) estimated total food expenditures for all food consumed in the United States was $1.16 trillion in 2008; spending away from home was $565 billion; of which, restaurants accounted for $440 billion [8]

· The US fast food industry is worth $240 billion a year [9]

· An estimated 76 million cases of food borne illness are reported in the US each year (26 000 per 100 000 of the population), resulting in 323 914 hospitalizations and 5 194 deaths [10], costing the nation more than $35 billion in medical care and lost productivity

· Obesity is increasing in all age and ethnic groups; in children and adolescents, the prevalence of being overweight rose by 50 percent between 1995 and 2005. A study involving 3031 young adults both black and white found those with frequent visits to fast food restaurants gained an extra 4.5 kg body weight and had a 104 percent greater increase in insulin resistance [11]

· Obesity rates increased by 37 percent between 1998 and 2006, from 18.3 to 24.1 percent of population; the cost of extra annual medical spending due to obesity reached $147 billion in 2008 [12]

· One ingredient, monosodium glutamate (MSG), used as flavour enhancer and appetite stimulant in practically all fast foods, is routinely injected into mice to create obese mice in laboratories [13]. A study on 750 Chinese men and women aged between 40 and 59 in three rural villages in north and south China showed that people who use MSG in their food are more likely to be overweight or obese, even though they have the same amount of physical activity and total calorie intake than people who don’t use it [14]
> What has allowed food inc. to happen?
>
> There is a revolving door between US government regulators and agri-food corporations, all but one have declined to be interviewed for the film.
>
> From off-stage, Monsanto casts a long dark shadow. The biotech corporation has been allowed to build a monopoly on patented genetically modified (GM) seeds, and planted them on 90 percent of the nation’s soybean, corn and cotton fields in just 13 years. It is allowed to harass and intimidate farmers, not just for saving its GM seeds illegally, but for patent infringement, should a farmer choose not to grow GM crops, and the non-GM crop becomes contaminated, inevitably, by the neighbours’ GM seeds or pollen.

Not only has Monsanto et al prevented GM products in the supermarket from being labelled, so no one can say whether GM food has harmed people, some states have enacted a food libel law that forbids anyone to say bad things about a food product that leads to loss of profit for the food industry.

If you think food was bad enough before GM, you should prepare for worse, though Food, Inc does not touch on the subject. There is now a substantial body of evidence indicating that genetic modification may be inherently hazardous. Whenever and wherever independent studies are carried out to test the effects of GM feed on animals, scientists find increased illnesses, sterility or deaths; moreover, they find the same problems when the raw data from studies submitted by the companies to get approval for their GM crops are reanalysed; and farmers and farm workers are witnessing the same happening in the fields [15] (GM is Dangerous and Futile, SiS 40). The raw data from companies are obtainable only through the law courts, as they are routinely kept secret as ‘commercial business information’
>
> A farmer who has stubbornly held out against planting GM crops had problems finding a seed cleaner for his non-GM seeds. When he finally found one, the seed cleaner was sued by Monsanto, and under extreme duress, settled out of court.
>
> It is shocking that a nation that regards itself as a model of democracy should allow its people to be victimized by corporate serfdom. It is also surprising that there has been no popular movement against Monsanto et al. The recent victory against the introduction of Monsanto’s GM egg plant (Bt brinjal) in India is an inspiration. It shows what a coalition of grassroots non-government organisations, farmers, honest scientists, local politicians, and consumers can achieve [16].
> Will Wall Mart save our food?
>
> Food, Inc. ends on a hopeful note that consumers can change things through purchasing power. After all, Wall Mart, the world’s top retailer, has taken the lead in rejecting recombinant bovine growth hormone milk because the customers don’t like it. And it is now stocking organic grass-fed meat because the customers want it.
>
> So, it is down to consumer choice and triumph of the ‘free-market’; an altogether too rosy view. What about the poor families that cannot afford to buy organic? What choice is there for them? What about the farmers that can’t get non-GM seeds and whose organic crops get contaminated by their neighbours’ GM crops so they lose their organic certification?
>
> Farmers need to be supported by food and farming cooperatives
>
> Consumer demand for organic produce is indeed rising and outstripping supply, yet farmers are not converting to organic; not even when the country is in fact facing an ecological meltdown from its GM crops [17] (GM Crops Facing Meltdown in the USA, SiS 46), another aspect that Food, Inc. does not go into. The three major crops, soybean, corn and cotton, genetically modified for just two traits, herbicide tolerance and insect resistance, are ravaged by super weeds and secondary pests as farmers fight a losing battle with more of the same.
>
> US farmers are isolated from one another, from consumers, and from the entire food chain. They are simply not receiving enough support from society in general. One model that has worked well is a food and farming cooperative based on macrobiotic principles operating in Italy [18] Cooperative for Health, Food Security and Environment Against the Credit Crunch (SiS 42). This could help implement the fundamental shift to organic farming practices that would put an end to the Food Inc., horror, deliver good health and nutrition to the nation, and much more besides [19, 20] (Food Futures Now: *Organic *Sustainable *Fossil Fuel Free , ISIS publication; Organic Agriculture and Localized Food & Energy Systems for Mitigating Climate , SiS40)

Dr. Craig Holdrege of the Nature Institute based in New York, USA, has initiated a project on Unintended Effects of Genetic Manipulation http://natureinstitute.org/nontarget/

The magic healing potion " Wheatgrass"

Greetings from "My Right to Safe Food"

Each time well researched and informative articles like this surfaces, it brings back a stream of practices adopted at different points in our lives.

I recall ever since I relocated a decade ago, my sister Amita an avid safe food practitioner, her constant endevour was to introduce a healthy regime into our lives. We would find her experimenting on her researches and implementing them in her lifestyle.. Through her enthusiasm we became familiar with several home made potent remedies and healing recipes that I will unfold shortly.

The highlight today is wheatgrass, we watched the trays of wheat grass sown with much care and then a few days later to find it germinating beautifully. Then spread them further on to raised beds making it available to everyone of us.

"Here is a magic potent, a powerful detoxifier and liver and blood protector that will strengthen our immunities", she would willfully convince us to ensure we had 2 oz of wheatgrass every morning on an empty stomach. When the taste got a bit unpalatable to some of the family members she would then cleverly add a dash of fresh apple juice to make it taste delicious. Her perseverance through all these years is admirable. I must confess, every time she introduces a novel health potion absolutely unheard off, at first, the reaction would be one of "Oh no, now what next?" , it would then be followed with an indepth debate to convince us of her wisdom. She never took no for an answer. It took us a while to cotton on that by following her simple steadfast natural solutions we were all able to stay fit and healthy. I cannot thank her enough. Which only reminds me that i must continue this practise of growing wheatgrass.

As rightly said by Ann Wigmore below "The enzymes and amino acids found in wheat grass can protect us from carcinogens like no other food or medicine can. It strengthens our cells, detoxifies the liver, bloodstream, and chemically neutralizes environmental pollutants". Anne Wigmore was the first to investigate and promote wheat grass juice and started the Hippocrates Institute. She included evidence in her books of the blood cleansing and building abilities of chlorophyll, it's effect on the circulatory system and role in detoxifying and regenerating the liver.

I also know of a safe food campaigner Sobha Golecha based in Chennai who for years now has been growing wheat grass and promoting its medicinal attributes. She cuts and delivers them to people who use it for curative purposes. The most wonderful aspect is that Shobha supplies wheat grass to cancer patients free. Absolutely remarkable.

A little effort with a zest of care will surely nurture your powerhouse of energies......

In solidarity

Sangita Sharma
http://myrighttosafefood.blogspot.com/
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> The Benefits of Wheatgrass, by Ann Wigmore


AnnwigmoreThe Benefits of Wheatgrass
excerpts from The Wheatgrass Book by Dr. Ann Wigmore

WHEAT GRASS...... Increases red blood cell count, lowers blood pressure… It cleanses the blood, organs and gastrointestinal tract of debris. It stimulates metabolism and bodily enzyme systems in enriching the blood by increasing red blood cell count, and in dilating the blood pathways throughout the body, reducing blood pressure.

Stimulates the thyroid, correcting obesity, indigestion, etc. The thyroid gland is also stimulated and normalized by the use of wheatgrass juice – an important step toward the correction of obesity, indigestion and a host of other complaints.
Restores alkalinity to the blood… Wheatgrass has an alkalizing effect on the blood. Its abundance of alkaline minerals helps reduce over-acidity in the blood. It can be used to relieve many internal pains. It has been used successfully to treat peptic ulcers, ulcerative colitis, constipation, diarrhea, and other complaints of the gastrointestinal tract.
How to drink it… Dr. Ann Wigmore suggests drinking wheatgrass juice in small amounts throughout the course of the day, always on an empty or nearly empty stomach. In general, two to four ounces every day or two is sufficient. Slowly sipping small quantities of the juice gives your body an opportunity to get used to its taste and effect. Taking one or two-ounce drinks straight or mixed with other juices (fruit & vegetable) and sipping slowly will help prevent nausea or stomach upset. On a healing regime, Dr. Ann suggests you drink one or two oz., up to 3 or 4 times a day. And to take one day of rest a week.
Powerful detoxifier and liver and blood protector… The enzymes and amino acids found in wheatgrass can protect us from carcinogens like no other food or medicine can. It strengthens our cells, detoxifies the liver, bloodstream, and chemically neutralizes environmental pollutants.

Fights tumors and neutralizes toxins…. Recent studies show that wheatgrass juice has a powerful ability to fight tumors without the usual toxicity of drugs that also inhibit cell-destroying agents. The many active compounds found in grass juice can cleanse the blood and neutralize and digest toxins in our cells.
Whether you have a cut finger you want to heal, or you desire to lose five pounds… enzymes must do the actual work. The life and abilities of the enzymes found naturally in our bodies can be extended if we help them from the outside by adding exogenous enzymes, like the ones found in wheatgrass juice.
Remarkable similarity to our own blood… The 2nd important nutritional aspect of chlorophyll is its remarkable similarity to hemoglobin, the compound that carries oxygen in the blood. Dr. Hagiwara, a Japanese science and health educator, is a leading advocate for the use of grass as food and medicine. He reasons that since chlorophyll is soluble in fat particles, and since fat particles are absorbed directly into the blood via the lymphatic system, that chlorophyll can also be absorbed in this way. In other words, when the “blood” of plants is absorbed in humans it is transformed into human blood, which transports nutrients to every cell of the body.
Wheatgrass implants reverse damage from inside the lower bowel… In the case of illness, they stimulate a rapid cleansing of the lower bowel and draw out accumulations of debris. Hold for 20 minutes.
Externally eliminates itching almost immediately… Wheatgrass juice externally applied to the skin can help eliminate itching almost immediately.

It will soothe sunburned skin and also acts as a disinfectant.

Rubbed into the scalp before a shampoo, it will help mend damaged hair and
alleviate itchy, scaly scalp conditions.

*Wheatgrass juice is soothing and healing for cuts, burns, scrapes, rashes, poison ivy, athlete’s foot, insect bites, boils, sores , open ulcers, tumors & so on.As a sleep aid…
*Merely place a tray of living wheatgrass near the head of your bed. It will enhance the oxygen in the air and generate healthful negative ions to help you sleep more soundly.
*Use as a poultice and replace every two to four hours.Add some to your bath water and settle in for a nice, long soak.
*Gargle with wheatgrass to sweeten the breath and firm up and tighten gums.
*Don’t cook it… We can only get the benefits of the many enzymes found in grass by eating it uncooked. Cooking destroys 100 percent of the enzymes in food.
*Neutralizes toxins… Wheatgrass neutralizes toxic substances like cadmium,nicotine, strontium, mercury and polyvinyl chloride.
*The benefits of a liquid oxygen transfusion… Wheatgrass juice contains liquid oxygen. Oxygen is vital to many body processes: it stimulates digestion (the oxidation of food), clearer thinking (the brain utilizes 25 percent of the bodily oxygen supply), and protective oxygenation of the blood (a defense against anaerobic bacteria). Cancer cells cannot exist in the presence of oxygen.
* Turns gray hair to its natural color again, raises energy levels… Daily consumption of wheatgrass and sprouts can turn gray hair to its natural color again, and give you a limitless energy level.
*Beauty treatment that slows down the aging process… Wheatgrass will cleanse your blood and help rejuvenate aging cells, slowing the aging process down, way down, making you feel more alive now. It will help tighten loose and sagging skin.
*Lessens effect of radiation… One enzyme found in wheatgrass, SOD, lessens the effects of radiation and acts as an anti-inflammatory compound that may prevent cellular damage following heart attacks or exposure to irritants.

Restores fertility… Wheatgrass restores fertility and promotes youthfulness.

Just soaking in it can double your red blood cell count. Dr. Bernard Jensen found that none of the blood builders are superior to green juices and wheatgrass. In his book Chlorophyll Magic, from Living Plant Life, he mentions several cases where he was able to double the red blood cell count in a matter of days merely by having patients soak in a chlorophyll-water bath. Blood building results occur even more rapidly when patients drink green juices and wheatgrass regularly.

Ann Wigmore on her own experience with wheatgrass: “At fifty years of age my hair was gray, I had a terrible case of colitis and other colon problems, I suffered from low energy and had no clear direction in life. Out of desperation I turned to nature for relief… In wheatgrass, raw foods and exercise, I found what I feel is as close to the fountain of youth as we are going to get. Twenty-five years after my discovery, my hair was turned fully natural brown again. My weight has been a stable 119 and my energy level is limitless”

What’s So Great About Wheat Grass Juice?*

1. Wheatgrass juice is 70% chlorophyll.
2. Chlorophyll is the first product of light and contains more light energy than any other element.

3. Wheatgrass juice is a crude chlorophyll and can be taken orally and as a colon implant without toxic side effects.
>
> 4. Chlorophyll is the basis of all plant life.
>
> 5. Wheatgrass is high in oxygen like all green plants that contain chlorophyll. The brain and all body tissues function at an optimal level in a highly-oxygenated environment.
>
> 6. Chlorophyll is anti-bacterial and can be used inside and outside the body as a healer.
>
> 7. Dr. Bernard Jensen says that it only takes minutes to digest wheatgrass juice and uses up very little body energy.
>
> 8. Science has proven that chlorophyll arrests growth and development of unfriendly bacteria.
>
> 9. Chlorophyll (wheatgrass) rebuilds the blood stream. Studies of various animals have shown chlorophyll to be free of any toxic reaction. The red cell count was returned to normal with 4 to 5 days of the administration of chlorophyll, even in those animals which were known to be extremely anemic or low in red cell count.
>
> 10. Farmers in the Midwest who have sterile cows and bulls put them on wheatgrass to restore fertility. (The high magnesium content in chlorophyll builds enzymes that restore the sex hormones.)
>
> 11. Chlorophyll can be extracted from many plants, but wheatgrass is superior because it has been found to have over 100 elements needed by man. If grown in organic soil, it ab sorbs 92 of the known 102 minerals from the soil.
>
> 12. Wheatgrass has what is called the grass juice factor, which has been shown to keep herbivorous animals alive indefinitely.
>
> 13. Dr. Ann Wigmore has been helping people get well from chronic disorders for 30 years using wheatgrass.
>
> 14. Liquid chlorophyll gets into the tissues, refines them, and makes them over.
>
> 15. Wheatgrass juice is a superior detoxification agent compared to carrot juice and other fruits and vegetables. Dr. Earp Thomas, associate of Ann Wigmore, says that 15 pounds of wheatgrass is the equivalent of 350 pounds of carrots, lettuce, celery and so on.
>
> 16. Liquid chlorophyll washes drug deposits from the body.
>
> 17. Chlorophyll neutralizes toxins in the body.
>
> 18. Chlorophyll helps purify the liver.
>
> 19. Chlorophyll improves blood sugar problems.
>
> 20. Wheatgrass juice cures acne and even removes scars after it has been ingested for seven to eight months. The diet must be improved at the same time.
>
> 21. In The American Journal of Surgery (1940), Benjamin Cruskin, M.D., recommended chlorophyll to clear up foul-smelling odors, neutralize strep infections, heal wounds, hasten skin grafting, cure chronic sinusitis, over come chronic inner-ear inflammation and infections, reduce varicose veins and heal leg ulcers, eliminate impetigo and other scabby eruptions, heal rectal sores, successfully treat inflammation of the uterine cervix, get rid of parasitic vaginal infections, reduce typhoid fever, and cure advanced pyorrhea in many cases.
>
> 22. Wheatgrass juice acts as a detergent in the body and is used as a body deodorant.
>
> 23. A small amount of wheatgrass juice in the human diet prevents tooth decay.
>
> 24. Wheatgrass juice held in the mouth for 5 minutes will eliminate toothaches and poisons from gums.
>
> 25. Gargle with wheatgrass juice for a sore throat.
>
> 26. Pyorrhea of the mouth: lay pulp of wheatgrass soaked in juice on diseased area in mouth or chew wheatgrass. Spit out out pulp.
>
> 27. Drink wheatgrass juice for skin problems such as eczema or psoriasis.
>
> 28. Wheatgrass juice keeps the hair from graying.
>
> 29. By taking wheatgrass juice, one may feel a difference in strength, endurance, health, and spirituality, and experience a sense of well-being.

> 30. Wheatgrass juice improves the digestion.
>
> 31. It is great for blood disorders of all kinds.
>
> 32. Wheatgrass juice is high in enzymes.
>
> 33. Wheatgrass juice is an excellent skin cleanser and can be absorbed through the skin for nutrition. Pour green juice over your body in a tub of warm water and soak for 15 to 20 minutes. Rinse off with cool water.
>
> 34. Wheatgrass implants (enemas) are great for healing and detoxifying the colon walls. The implants also heal and cleanse the internal organs. After an enema, wait 20 minutes, then implant 4-ounces of wheatgrass juice. Retain for 20 minutes.
>
> 35. Wheatgrass juice is great for constipation and keeping the bowels open. It is high in magnesium.
>
> 36. Dr. Birscher, a research scientist, called chlorophyll “concentrated sun power.” He said, “Chlorophyll increases the function of the heart, affects the vascular system, the intestines, the uterus and the lungs.”
>
> 37. According to Dr. Birscher, nature uses chlorophyll (wheatgrass) as a body cleanser, rebuilder and neutralizer of toxins.
>
> 38. Wheatgrass juice can dissolve the scars that are formed in the lungs from breathing acid gasses. The effect of carbon monoxide is minimized since chlorophyll increases hemoglobin production.
>
> 39. Wheatgrass juice reduces high blood pressure as it enhances the capillaries.
>
> 40. Wheatgrass juice can remove heavy metals from the body.
>
> The Wheatgrass Book is available at Amazon.com.
>
> *This information is derived from the writings of doctors and research scientists and is not meant to replace the services of your physician, but offered as educational information.

India follows the US: Pushing farmers out of agriculture, and invite industry to take over.

Posted by Devinder Sharma at 10:56 AM

About 100 years back, the United States had pushed some 25 million people off the farms. In India, we are now trying to do the same. In the US, the native Indians were in lot many ways exterminated. In India, we are also picking up a leaf from the US copybook, and adopting it ruthlessly.

The latest essay by Arundhati Roy "Walking with the comrades" (Outlook, Mar 2010) tells you all. Ever since I read it believe me it has become difficult for me to let my thoughts emerge out of the jungles of Chhatisgarh. I admire the courage of Arundhati, and I feel she is perhaps amongst the great writers who have taken it upon themselves to stand by truth. As Arundhati wrote to me: "I am haunted by what is going on." I can understand how and why she feels like this.

But the urban population in India gives a damn. While I still can't believe that the industry and government are so blatantly hand in glove in driving out these simple tribal people from their habitat, the upwardly mobile in India are actually happy. In many ways the bigger tragedy is that people living in Delhi/Mumbai or the other burstling towns have no clue about the gun battle that goes on in the name of Operation Green Hunt.

The urbanites are happy and content, feeling safe and spend hours watching the IPL cricket matches. They live in their own make believe world, buttressed by government subsidies and doles in the name of development, and have little idea about the country beyond the outer limits of Delhi Metro (the new rail subway) for instance. They genuinely believe the war against Maoists is in some alien land. Who cares?

Anyway, I take you back to the farming model that India has adopted from the US. Paul Stephens, a 4th generation homestead-farmer from Highwood (in US), long ago driven off the land, had in Jan this year, sent me this communication:

"The Montana Agribusiness Association and the Grain Elevators Association are meeting today here in Great Falls - a big trade show, prominently featuring GMO firms like Monsanto and Bayern. They have been covered heavily (and completely uncritically) by Northern Broadcasting and other Montana media.

It seems unbelievable to me that most farmers and even grass-roots agriculture organizations like the Farmer's Union are almost completely ignorant of the massive destruction wrought by the promotion and use of GMO seeds, recombinant bovine growth hormones, the introduction of insecticide-producing genes into corn and other crops, and the whole movement toward "tillage-free agriculture", in which the ground is soaked with chemicals and herbicides instead of regular farming which aerates and loosens the soil to provide a healthy seed bed.

Last week, they had an even bigger convention, the MAGIE, which featured a spraying machine costing several hundred thousand dollars. Large corporate farms are adopting satellite technology (GPS) to control their machines. One salesman, probably unintentionally, made the bizarre statement that such a machine could save some small number of hours a year of farmer's time - at a cost, probably, of $1000's/hour for this "savings." It's like something out of science fiction, and yet, smaller, family farms (less than 2000 acres) are all but extinct here, and the larger ones exist entirely by government subsidies, amounting to billions of dollars a year just in Montana.

I've been trying to talk to farmers I knew for the past 40 years about the threats posed by factory farming and being taken in by the agribusiness monopolies. Unfortunately, their kids are the ones who are now selling it to them - trained by "land grant" universities like Montana State which have virtually been taken over by firms like Monsanto, becoming "partners in crime" with their program to destroy the small, family farm, and force everyone to use their toxic products.

I know it is a tough battle, and small farmers just don't think they have a chance of surviving by doing anything different. In fact, it's their only chance for survival."

Not only forced eviction, even technology is pushing farmers off the land. I am sure you can see a similar pattern being followed in Indian agriculture. This only goes to endorse what I have been saying for long. The entire objective of reforms in agriculture is to push farmers out of agriculture. It is an exit policy for farmers.

Barbara Panvel, another amazing activist from UK, has today sent me an analysis
which draws from a recent news report from the pages of Financial Times. The report entitled: "India's tribals in land fight with business" (FT Mar 9, 2010) is by Amy Kazmin, and she writes from Lohandiguda. This is what she says:

First, the land surveyors came. Then the rumours spread through the villages: Tata, one of India’s biggest conglomerates, would build a steel mill in the district.

Finally, government officials came to ask the villagers in Lohandiguda in Chhattisgarh state, who are mainly illiterate farmers from the Gond tribe, to relinquish their fields for the promise of cash, jobs and a better future.

For Banga Ram, the 65-year-old patriarch of a large family, the request was absurd. “What will we do with the money?” he asked. “We have to do agriculture to feed these children.” But local officials were not taking “No” for an answer.

Banga Ram was arrested. After he spent 13 days in jail, he says his sons signed away the land and accepted compensation.

In nearby Chindgaon village, Sundar Kashyap, who earns Rs10,000 ($219, €161, £146) a month working for the government animal husbandry department, says his bosses warned him of trouble if his younger brothers refused to sign over two of their five acres. They, too, signed.

Yet five years after Tata Steel announced its plans for the mill, the families of both men are still cultivating their ancestral fields. Officials are struggling to complete the contentious land acquisition, with 20 per cent of the required 5,000 hectares still outstanding and a local civil rights lawyer threatening legal action against the process.

“I am going to challenge it,” says Pratap Agrawal, an attorney in the nearby small town of Jagdalpur. “Villagers are absolutely against handing over even an inch of their land.”

Battles over forcible acquisition of agricultural land for industry are raging across India. But nowhere are they as fraught as in India’s tribal belt, where long-neglected indigenous animist tribes, known as adivasis, have upset the plans of corporate groups such as Vedanta, Tata Steel, Essar Steel and National Mineral Development Corp to tap mineral riches. (You can read the full report at http://www.chs-sachetan.org/?page_id=18)

Well, did you notice how similar with the US is the approach that India is following? Once these tribals are displaced, and the World Bank has suggested training them to become industrial workers, the agribusiness industry will move in with their own battery of economists and agricultural scientists. They will shout from the roof-top that the industry is required for launching the 2nd Green Revolution, and the Planning Commision will oblige by reforming the food security parameters (see todays lead story in ET: Montak calls for sweeping reforms to boost farmville).

It is the beginning of the end of farmers.

Shouldn't we thank the US for showing us the way to get rid of our farmers? It all begins with exterminating the native population (in India, since we do not use the word native, we call them tribals).

Mera Bharat Mahaan!

Why Go Organic – Ten Top Reasons

Why Go Organic
Monday, February 15, 2010 posted by batalionn

Here are the ten top reasons to GO ORGANIC
EFFECTS ON OUR TOPSOIL
The soil of our earth is the foundation of the whole human and environmental food chain and thus our survival. The typical organic farm is teaming with life – from butterflies, to frogs, to bees, to you name it. Conventional farms have polluted and depleted and thus “dead” soils. They have been rendered sterile, using herbicides and pesticides to kill other life forms. Also through the vast degradation of our soil, we are losing cropland topsoil seven times faster than it is being replaced naturally. This ties in to the philosophy of raw-wisdom that the conventional vision of nature is death-centered mechanical rather than life-centered.

EFFECTS ON OUR WATERS
Nearly 700 hundred toxic chemicals pollute our groundwater, many of them coming from agricutural pesticides and herbicides. These chemicals cause cancer and other debilitating illnesses and are not removed by conventional means. Virtually all the drinking water in the US is polluted and 2/3rds of our own bodies are made up of water.
IMPACT ON ENERGY USE
Conventional farming methods use far more gas and petroleum, both to create chemical fertilizers and to till, cultivate and harvest crops. Organic farms are more labor-intensive. Government subsidized conventional farms use 12% of the US total energy consumption. Ultimately we pay the far, far higher price either in taxes and/or the horrid devastation that yields global warming.

IMPACT ON THE QUALITY OF NUTRITION
US agriculture uses more than 800 different toxic pesticides. Over 3,000 chemicals overall are mixed into our foods directly, and nearly 10,000 are used in the production and storing of foods. Most of these chemicals are harmful to our health. They may engender cancer, birth defects, neurological illnesses, dementia and other serious dysfunctions. According to the EPA, 60% of herbicides, 90% of fungicides and 30% of pesticides are strongly carcinogenic. The National Academy of Sciences estimate as far back as 1987 that pesticides could cause over a million cancer cases in the US alone over our lifetimes. On the positive side, organic produce has repeatedly been proven to have higher levels of essential nutrients, being grow in more living, mineral-rich, composted soils.

EFFECT ON FARM WORKERS
Studies have shown a link between pesticide use and Parkinson’s disease, leukemia and cancers among farm workers. An NCI study found that farm workers employed on conventional farms had 6x higher risk of getting cancer. A California study showed that farm workers in the field had the highest occupational illnesses rates of all California workers.

IMPACT ON SMALL FARMER SURVIVAL
Most organic farms are family-owned with less than a 100 acres. There has been a vast decimation of family farms for the past few decades. At the turn of the 20th century, farming was the primary livelihood in the US. Now it represents less than 1%. Organic farming remains among the last refuges for surviving family farms amid competition from large industrial farms that try to “cut-throat monopolize” the market. Over a million family farms have been lost over the last couple decades.

REAL ECONOMIC COSTS ARE LESS
Amid the illusions of the marketplace created by political forces, again many fail to see that organic foods are actually cheaper overall. First conventional farming is hugely subsidized and has hidden costs that are borne by all taxpayers. If you add the health and environmental costs, organic produce is really and truly the least expensive. We must remember that in the US medical costs have risen from 5% to 16% of the GNP in the last 20 years. Then there is hazardous waste removal costs and that of toxic substance testing and regulation, soil erosion, loss of fertility, wildlife decimation, and so on and so forth ad infinitum. You get the picture.

PROMOTES BIODIVERSITY
Organic farms tend to preserve heirloom varieties while large conventional farms do not and engage in sterile, mechanistic monocropping. The latter requires increasingly more lethal pesticide use as pest become resistant over time and crops become subject to wholesale blights. It was monocropping, followed by a blight, that caused the famous Irish potato famine.

PROTECTS OUR CHILDREN’S FUTURE
Children ingest up to 4X the level of toxic residues compared to that of their parents. Tests have shown that exposure in early life, as early as in the womb , reveals residues in the placenta fluids. This often leads to much more cancer latter in life. The damage can be passed on genetically to affect all subsequent generations in a harmful way. This is why we need to detox or help our bodies get rid of lifetime toxic loads. If all-organic food buying seems expensive at first, consider skipping a meal to help your body detox. Or fast for a day. Or shop at a direct farmers market, plant your own organic home garden, work a few hours for your local food coop and/or farm in exchange, and so on. Be creative. Where there is a will there is always a way!

MOVES AWAY FROM AN UNWISE VISION OF NATURE
All living forms have awareness because life’s foundation resides in a presence of consciousness. From tiny nano-bacteria to huge dinasours, living organisms have awareness. This awareness forms, in my experience, the universal relationship ofconnection in all of nature, and ultimately the foundation of oneness that interconnects all living creatures. The mechanical worldview of the 17th century disrupts and destroys this weave. This is because its view is based on universally separative symbols (math symbols used to create the mechanical vision). The mechanical view is thus based on opposite principles to those of life in nature. This is the root reason why when the mechanical vision is deeply (not surface) applied, this unravels the connective weave of ecospheres. Actually the deeper applications threaten the sustainability of life on earth. This is further why toxic pesticides and herbicides are being banned in several nations. Otherwise we follow a death-delivering approach to farming – with carcinogenic impacts on our body and vast disruptions of surrounding nature.

SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR – GO ORGANIC
For these ten reasons and more, let us very wisely GO ORGANIC TO THRIVE.