Ok. So, I'm a little concerned (to say the very least) that in the last three weeks it has come to light via various media channels that we have been eating, are eating and will probably continue to eat poison food. What's scarier is that it's not the first, nor will it be the last incident that is (or is not) reported. For those of you who have been too busy watching the 137th season of "Inept Idol", let me provide a brief time line.
2007: Hundreds of pets sickened or killed by imported pet food tainted with the industrial chemical melamine during production in China. Wheat gluten tainted with melamine also was used to feed thousands of chickens and hogs at American farms. U.S. officials say there is little risk to human health, but those animals have not been released for slaughter, pending an evaluation by the Food Safety and Inspection Service.
2006: Three deaths and at least 200 people sickened by E. coli-tainted bagged spinach, prompting grocery stores to yank the greens from the shelves and restaurants to take it off the menu.
2006: 71 people in at least five states sickened by E. coli-tainted shredded lettuce at Taco Bell restaurants.
So basically what we're being told is, if we aren't lucky enough to be able to afford the $9.00 Hand-Picked-Still-Warm-From-The-Chicken's-Behind Organic Grain Fed Luxury Henhouse Eggs from the uber-exclusive valet shopping cart service grocery stores, we're outta luck. Damned the single parent who has a hard enough time scraping together lunch money for their child on a daily basis. I know it's hard, because that was me. Damned the family that can't even keep the lights on, let alone worry about the difference between organic and free-range. Damned the kids who are misdiagnosed every year with ADHD, ADD, Autism and countless other behavioral disorders when in fact it's more likely that their poor little bodies are trying to reject the CRAP that their parents are unknowingly feeding them. See: FD&C Red # 40, FD&C Yellow No. 6
Lately it seems that in the United States people are tending to have this wrapped in the flag, "we're No. 1" mentality and all that, but for the Creator's sake please, please, please listen to what other countries are doing about the additives in the food supply and most important of all, read the ingredients of the food you eat. Common sense rules. If you can't pronounce it, your body probably can't use it. I'm no expert, I'm just trying to pay attention.
Peace and Understanding.(for organic school lunches for your kids check out lunchbynature.com)
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9 comments:
Yo!!!!! And that's real! Man I was watching the news the other night and they just recalled around 1800 pounds of ground beef from Lunds and Byerly's...
I watched Fast Food Nation about a month ago and I haven't eaten any beef since. Then with the Peter Pan peanut butter...I'm like how the hell do you get salmonella in peanut butter?!?! There's nothing good about meat really these days if you can't like you said afford what we would assume to be top-notch, only because we can't afford it...it's unfortunate...man it's a couple of corner shops in the hood eh-hem So-Low grocery that be selling old ass meat that you gotta know aint fresh!! But people buy it b-cuz they think they are getting a deal,or they can't afford it elsewhere. It's a shame cuz we have enough health problems as it is in our communities of color.
this is a good post.
Man... you've done it again oh mighty "fog remover", shedding light on the darkest parts of the most obvious. you've always been good for that. congrats and great post. also for all of those hungry folks out there www.lunchbynature.com has some out-friggin-rageous (yet very healthy) chicken salad pitas... holla at 'em
bWhereas I fully agree with your basic premise about food safety and the contradictory nature of capitalist food production and public health, I am not so sure about the links to ADD/ADHD, Autism and other neurological conditions you mention in passing. I also fully agree that food additives and the ingestion of a tremendous amount of chemicals into the public body have not been tested adequately and until such time as they are proved safe, should not be included in the food supply. I would caution however, facile attempts to link ADD/ADHD to food additives (even though I share your suspicion that there may be some link). If one scratches the surface of epidemiological, demographic and statitiscal reasoning you will find many confounding factors, fallacies and illogical reasoning that should be avoided. They should be avoided precisely due to the importance of discovering the cruelty inflicted on millions of innocent people in the name of blind indifference and profit. Thanks for your attempt to shed some additional light in the darkness.
To you up there ^^^:
If you notice she's talking about the kids who are MISDIAGNOSED with ADD, etc.
I don't see anywhere that she's saying these things CAUSE ADHD, etc...
I think she's right on target. Most urban teachers who know their students and care about them can tell you that misdiagnoses happen all the time.
The even greater teachers who might be the ones to bring in food for their kids one morning before a test, might even be able to illustrate the vast difference in behavior when the kid is given the proper environment and resources (i.e. food, etc)
I hear the stories all the time about kids being thrown into the special ed pool because the rules are too generalized to allow kids to be treated according to their specific issues (i.e. simple lack of good nutrition)... so instead any kid with a behavioral problem for whatever reason is throw into special ed.
My only intention was to create space for dialogue. Indeed many children are suffering from genuine behavioral, neurological and developmental disorders. But there are strange parallels considering the fact that in the last 10 - 20 years or so Ritalin has become synonymous with "Hall Pass" in that school-aged kids are being prescribed the infamous drug in droves. Sounds crazy that I can say this in the same breath, but in 1998 at the National Institutes of Health Consensus on ADHD, the following statement was issued: "We do not have an independent, valid test for ADHD, and there is no data to indicate that ADHD is due to a brain malfunction". So basically, we're going back to the age of applying a diagnosis where none is needed in order to generate additional pharmaceutical revenue or to fit the agenda of the present day society. Kind of like when the "medical community" of 1851 collectively decided that slaves suffered from Drapetomania: a madness or frenzy which explained the slaves’ tendency to run away. Sounds ridiculous doesn't it? Just about as ridiculous as prescribing an eight-year-old child an anti-depressant because he can't sit still in class. I don't know about you, but when I was eight I couldn't sit still either, and I thank The Creator that no one was there shoving little pills down my throat. I'm just saying, little girls have begun menstruating at earlier and earlier ages, go to the grocery store and you can buy boneless skinless chicken breasts with or without antibiotics, fibroid tumors (especially in women of African descent) occur two to three times more often than in women of other ethnicities and roughly 1.5 percent of children between the ages of 2 and 4 are being prescribed stimulants, anti-depressants, or anti-psychotic drugs. I'm scared. My kids are 2, 6 and 8 and I've already had to fight off one school from "diagnosing" my child. He wasn't suffering from a disorder; he was bored with the material he was being indoctrinated with. But that's another subject.
amen to that ^^^
mmmmm good dialogue...just like mamas home cooking...=)
I would have to agree with Nira. I believe there's a strong connection between nourishment/ nutrition and your body's chemical balance. BECAUSE there are chemical reactions that take place in your body that are a direct result of the things we eat and drink ie: heartburn, gas, even anxiety. If you eat lots of sugars before you go to sleep at night you tend to have more active dreams or no dreams at all becasue of how your body does or doesn't metabolize those sugars.
So this is just to say that how and what you eat affects behavior. If you are constantly eating sugars and things that are not giving nutrients to your body, your body and its organs will not function properly. Therefore there is a strong corrolation to the MIS-DIAGNOSIS of "behavioral" disorders like ADD and ADHD in particular.
Also Brian what you said directly corrolates to what I was talking about with that article I sent you about Special Ed. being a "drop zone" for issues like these that we create but don't want to be accountable for.
Accountability. Wow, this one could go on all day...
Nira:
I agree with you. Good job you continue to make your ole cuz proud of you. You done good girl.
Nita
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