Ugly America

Dear True,

I’m thinking about the Ugly Americans, about what evil they have done to the world so far in the first decade of the 21^st century. Let me count the ways:

First there was what we might call 9/11 revenge: to avenge the deaths of 4,000 Americans on that tragic day we have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens in other nations, mostly Iraq and Afghanistan. We have left millions homeless, we have destroyed their infrastructure and centuries of culture, we have committed rape and murder by our hired mercenaries like Blackwater, we have caused 4,000 soldiers to die and untold others ruined lives, suicides, post traumatic stress unlike any war in living memory and we have failed to provide jobs or health care or training to these fractured souls when they come home. Have we taken enough revenge yet? Can we finally say, yes, we now understand why “they” hate us so much?

Second, the markets of the whole world are reeling from the bad mortgage loans given out by greedy profiteers, yes, here in the US of A. The dollar has tanked for similar reasons and the trillions of dollars of federal debt are owed by and large to other countries like Japan and China.

Next, look at our record on torture of prisoners, warrantless spying on everybody, destruction of a free press by the big media giants, dirty tricks politicking to win at any cost, the Bush-Cheney-Rove cabal’s devastation of our own constitution which so wisely provided separation of powers, the dismantling of all the good and great social nets that brought widespread security and prosperity after the Depression…. This list is endless. Look at the millions of people here and billions elsewhere who can’t meet their basic survival needs for food, clothing and shelter thanks to our ruinous economic policies and the rampant greed of big oil. Look at how everything costs so much because it has to be delivered via oil-based energy, at how diverting grain production to ethanol has caused starvation.

Worst of all, don’t look too hard at how fast the Arctic permafrost is melting and releasing poisonous methane into the air we breathe, or at the dizzying speed of carbon emissions already spiraled beyond sustainable levels (i.e. that 350 ppm). Don’t look because you will recoil in terror, because there is probably no turning back from global disaster even if we stopped all coal-fired plants NOW and we won’t. No it’s bidness as usual in the good old US of A, the greed and hubris capitol of the world. It’s ME, NOW, SPEND, PILLAGE and PLUNDER. It’s cut down the mountaintops and create dead zones where no life survives just to mine a little more treasure trove out of Mother Earth, an astonishing and horrific metaphor for all we have done, all we have become.

Anonymous

Let them eat Triscuits

Dear readers,
Who will speak for those of us devastated by rampant inflation of food, gas, heat and electricity? Hmm, looks like it is up to little old me...
What is the deal here in Cook County? While the busy-ness elected officials continue to seek new sales taxes-a regressive burden on the poor-look out! Prices are rising at alarming rates.
Maybe not so surprising, since the world we know is also disintegrating (carbon emissions, melting Arctic permafrost releasing methane that humans can't breathe...)
Back to the point: True tries to eat right while respecting sustainable agriculture. For True, this does not mean buying organic fruits and vegetables! Ya ya it is the right thing to do BUT...
True is broke. So far not reduced to seeking macaroni from the food shelf, but no way being able to afford organic produce. Is that a sin?
There's a disconnect here. The rich can afford to buy organic, but I can't. I still owe big bucks for my winter fuel bills. My well water line doesn't work.
And yet I get guilt-tripped by the organic PC club?
Hello, folks. I used to have Triscuits and (Wisconsin, no hormones) cheese for dinner. Ya? When you are old and creaky maybe this will look good to you too.
Somehow I manage to buy fairly healthy food for myself and my beloved companion animals.
But, I won't be buying any more Triscuits, my former fave, 100 percent whole wheat with no trans fats.
Last week the price of a box was $3.19 for 9.5 ounces (a reach, by the pound this would buy some very fancy cheese at the coop); this week it is $4.00....
Like lots of poor folks, I can still get fat on the cheap stuff: white bread, pasta, potatoes, and corn chips. Nobody in Cook County need go without Kraft Dinner! Yum yum, everybody loves comfort food...
But what to do to make a difference in this world where people in Burma starve without even empty calories? True can't afford to make a difference!

Cattle Abuse, Beef Recall Highlight Systemic Weaknesses - CommonDreams.org

Here's a link to a St. Paul Pioneer Press story about the beef recall, and a press release on the same subject from Food and Water Watch:.

Stay tuned for a post-in-progress to be called "The Lunch Box," reflections on school lunches, animal rights and those animal rights "terrorists."

Cattle Abuse, Beef Recall Highlight Systemic Weaknesses - CommonDreams.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 20, 20082:18 PM
CONTACT: Food & Water Watch Jennifer Mueller at (202) 797-6553, e-mail: news (at) fwwatch.org

Video Reveals Big Problems at Meat Plant

WASHINGTON DC - February 20 - The February 18, 2008 announcement that more than 140 million pounds of frozen ground beef produced by a plant in California was being recalled has sparked lots of media coverage, not only because of the sheer size of the recall (the largest in U.S. history) but because of the dramatic video footage of the humane handling violations at the plant that sparked the recall. To top it off, the company that produced the recalled meat, Hallmark/Westland, is the second largest supplier of ground beef to the National School Lunch Program. So it’s no surprise that this has become a pretty big story, just the latest in a string of examples of our broken food safety system. But, as always, there is more to the story that what you see on the news.
What are downer cows exactly?
The recall was instituted because the plant violated a rule that downer cattle (those that cannot walk into the slaughter plant under their own power) are not allowed into the human food supply. This is because these animals could be suffering from neurological problems and are considered to be high risk for mad cow disease. When plants try to use downers, workers end up pushing, dragging, or otherwise forcing them into the plant. That is what the video footage obtained by the Humane Society of the United States shows. In addition to being cruel and inhumane, it is illegal, and that is why the USDA shut down the plant earlier this month after the video was released.
How did the plant get away with this?
We think this is one of the most important questions. USDA has a longstanding problem with vacancies in the ranks of its meat inspectors, so there are questions about whether there were enough USDA inspectors in this plant to do all of the things they need to, including looking at live animals before they go to slaughter. Additionally, some inspectors have raised concerns that USDA management in the plant instructed them not to go outside to check animals. Click here to read more about these concerns.
Why was the recall so big?
The amount of meat covered by this recall is so large because the USDA included all products that came from the plant for a long period of time – two years. This means that USDA is concerned that these violations may have been happening for that long, a sad commentary on their willingness to enforce their own rules. Because the recalled product is from such a long time period, most of it has probably been eaten, which makes the recall too little, too late. The other issue with this recall is that not all of the meat went to schools – some went to retail stores. For years, we have been urging USDA to include the names of stores where recalled product was sold in their public announcements. This massive recall just shows once again that this information is vital for consumers and the agency is irresponsible not to release it.
What can I do to avoid meat from plants that don’t treat animals humanely?
Check out the Eat Well Guide to find out where to buy local, sustainable meat in your area.

How do I find out if I bought meat involved in this recall?
The ground beef from Hallmark/Westland will have a stamp on it that says "Est. 336" on the package. This is the indentification number for this plant. Click here for a list of types of product types that were recalled.
###
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You are what you eat

Dear True,

EAT DEATH.

No, this is not a curse, or even a taunt from a vegetarian, although I am one. This is about eating nuked food. Yesterday I lunched with some special friends at the delightful Pie Place. While enjoying one another's company and the always fresh, always delicious food served up with friendliness in a gracious-home ambience, the subject of cooking summer meals came up.

I was bragging about how I could dish up a nutritious and delicious whole-grain bun Boca Burger with cheese and a side of corn on the cob in less than a minute in the microwave. High protein, high fiber, healthy food, yes? No, said my friends.

To backtrack a little, back in the early 1970's one of my yoga teachers who was also a homeopathic doc told us students that one day it would be understood by science how terribly damaging microwaves are. I believed him and for more than 25 years refused to have one of the darn things in my house. I changed my mind when my dad came to live with me because I could just nuke one of those frozen meals and he loved them. Still, I didn't cook with the dang contraption myself. It's only been in the last two or three years that I have lapsed. First, because I could so easily heat up tea and coffee without having it boil over. Then, just when I was in a big hurry, I might make a burrito with the touch of a button. Then, lo and behold, I discovered that tender vegetables can be achieved quickly and without boiling or stir-fry or steaming. And before I knew it I was a nukie junkie.

So, back to yesterday. My friends told me that recent studies have uncovered the horrible truth: microwaved food under Kirlian photography looks like a nuclear wasteland. Dead, in a horrible black shriveled shroud.

I believe them and I guess I really knew all the time that what looked so fresh and sweet really could not be, having had its molecules jiggled mercilessly with some kind of cosmic radiation. Shades of the desolate poisoned lands in Marion Zimmer Bradley's fantasy world, Darkover, left over from the Ages of Chaos where wars were fought with terrible weapons of mass destruction.

So. It's summer and yes, it is sometimes hot, even here on the North Shore. But it doesn't take a lot longer to cook your food on a grill, or stovetop, or even to roast your unshucked corn on the cob in the oven. Drag out the old crock pot for soups and sauces, or just simmer on the lowest flame on your back burner. Eat life-giving vegetables, fruits and plant proteins in all their summer bounty. Bon appetit!

Nancye Belding
Grand Marais

The USDA's unhealthful budget - baltimoresun.com

You heard it first from True: the USDA makes us fat!!! Check out this Emperor's-New-Clothes story from the Baltimore Sun:

The USDA's unhealthful budget - baltimoresun.com

Rovian Reich dismantles social contract, health and safety oversight, including Pure Food

Okay, we know that the Rovians and their ultra-right think tankers have been trying to dismantle democracy, worker protections, Medicare, Social Security, environmental protection and just about every other domestic policy enacted during the 20th century in response to the excesses of the robber barons, the depression, and the preference of the rich to enrich themselves further at everybody else's expense like the emperors of old. They have reached the pinnacle of achievement under the Bushco junta by squelching a free media, stealing elections, stomping on individual rights, and privatizing even their illegal wars with obscene profits to shadow outfits like Blackwater and Hallibuton. But their greatest success has been achieved by installing incompetents in every federal oversight agency so that disasters like Katrina help to worsen the plight of those who might vote against them.
We know all this. But are we prepared for them to kill us by poisoning our food supply? After all, everybody has to eat, not just welfare queens and labor union members.
In the bad old days, 100 or so years ago, "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair exposed lots of bad behavior in the Chicago meat-packing industry. True recalls reading about this in elementary school and being very shocked that rats, sawdust, cigarette butts and other unmentionables got stuffed into sausages.
But I don't recall reading that people were dying of E. coli in their spinach or peanut butter back in those utterly unregulated times. No, we can thank the Reich for that. They have gutted the Food and Drug Administration so severely that there is no way they can protect the food supply, even when they know (as they did in both recent cases) that there are serious problems. 101 years later, the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 is slated to go the way of the horse-and-buggy. That will be one of the high spots of the "Bush Legacy."
True

Fattening up the kids: the School Lunch program

Last week's "lunchbox" menu at ISD166 looked a lot like a trip to the food mall at the Minnesota State Fair: tacos, buttered corn, chili, chicken nuggets, corn dogs, french fries, muffins, cookies and cakes, fruits in sugary syrup. Nothing whole grain was on offer and the closest things to healthy foods were the ubiqitous milk (rgbh free? fat free? not), lettuce and tomatoes on the tacos, the carrot and celery sticks with the chili and cheese biscuits, and the juice or fruit with breakfast.
This week was distinguished from the usual fare only by the absence of macaroni, spaghetti, white buns and tater tots.
Yet with its usual myopia the MSM (main stream media to the innocent) has been kicking up a big fuss about healthy SNACKS for kids. Ho hum, sugary soft drinks are bad for you, yes; but is gingerbread cake any better? What about pancakes and bacon?
Get real, America. The fattening of kids has been going on steadily ever since the onset of the school lunch program where the USDA dumps excess commodities on the schools. Only lately it is much worse because the subsidies now go to produce white-flour products, high-fructose corn syrup, and fats from soybeans. Another piece of the puzzle is that most people really don't know anything about nutrition. If they cared, they would find out, despite the MSM's focus on the smallest piece of the problem so the big agribiz takeover of American diets is, like impeachment, "off the table."
True

Here's an excerpt from the New York Times article, "You are what you grow," which is also linked below.
A public-health researcher from Mars might legitimately wonder why a nation faced with what its surgeon general has called "an epidemic" of obesity would at the same time be in the business of subsidizing the production of high-fructose corn syrup. But such is the perversity of the farm bill: the nation's agricultural policies operate at cross-purposes with its public-health objectives. And the subsidies are only part of the problem.
The farm bill helps determine what sort of food your children will have for lunch in school tomorrow. The school-lunch program began at a time when the public-health problem ofAmerica's children was undernourishment, so feeding surplus agricultural commodities to kids seemed like a win-win strategy. Today the problem is overnutrition, but a school lunch lady trying to prepare healthful fresh food is apt to get dinged by U.S.D.A. inspectors for failing to serve enough calories; if she dishes up a lunch that includes chicken nuggets and Tater Tots, however, the inspector smiles and the reimbursements flow. The farm bill essentially treats our children as a human Disposall for all the unhealthful calories that the farm bill has encouraged American farmers to overproduce.

You are what you grow:
New York Times

Pet owners are making dog and cat food

By DORIE TURNER, Associated Press Writer
11 minutes ago

ATLANTA - Some dog and cat owners frightened by a contamination scare are forsaking the pet-food aisle and grinding up meat in their own kitchens instead.

Sales of pet food recipe books have also shot up since the nationwide pet-food recall began two weeks ago.

Amy Parish, 40, stopped giving her two aging chow chows canned food. Instead, Parish mixes dry food with a mash of chicken, rice, oatmeal and cottage cheese that she prepares twice a week.

"I'm very suspicious of any large-brand manufactured dog food," said Parish, who lives in the Atlanta suburb of Tucker.

But veterinarians warn that making balanced meals for pets can be complicated and should only be a temporary remedy until the scare passes.

Nearly 100 store and major-brand pet foods were recalled by manufacturer Menu Foods Inc. on March 16. Three other companies have recalled some foods since then.

Food and Drug Administration testing found that wheat gluten imported from China was contaminated with a chemical used in the manufacture of plastics. The FDA has confirmed about 15 pet deaths, and anecdotal reports suggest hundreds of cats and dogs may have died.

Some pet owners are not taking any chances.

After Hills Pet Nutrition Inc. recalled one of its cat products, John Slavens, 41, of San Diego, started making homemade food for his two border collies.

He spent five hours in the kitchen Sunday, grinding beef and boiling potatoes and pasta for a week's worth of stew, supplemented with an all-in-one vitamin-mineral powder.

"These dogs are my family," Slavens said.

The FDA and the American Veterinary Medical Association are urging pet owners to switch brands if they are worried. The veterinarian group also warned that many common foods are not safe for pets, including salt, garlic, onions, grapes and chocolate.

Making pet food at home is "kind of like canning: You have to think about bacterial contamination. And how do you make sure it's nutritionally appropriate and balanced for the animal?" said FDA spokeswoman Julie Zawisza. She added: "We wouldn't object. We'd say be knowledgeable about what you need."

On Amazon.com, the cookbook "Real Food for Dogs" moved into the list of top 200 best-sellers this week. Other authors were finding instant success, too.

Dr. Donald Strombeck said the Amazon.com sales rank for his book "Home-Prepared Dog & Cat Diets: The Healthful Alternative" jumped from below 60,000 to about 1,000 after the recalls.

The retired professor of veterinary nutrition at the University of California, Davis, challenged the common assertion that owners should not feed their pets table food.

When he began practicing veterinary medicine in the 1950s, he said, most pet owners fed their pets scraps from the table, keeping the risk of contamination low.

"The pet food industry doesn't want people competing with them," Strombeck said. "An animal can basically eat the same things we eat. They're not going to develop a deficiency."

Robert Van Sickle, co-owner of the Polka Dog Bakery in Boston, said he has received many inquiries from customers on advice for making their own dog food. For his German short-haired pointer, Van Sickle blends carrots, spinach, salmon oil, apple cider vinegar and whatever meat is in his freezer.

"What this scare has shown me is that it's amazing how many people don't know what they are feeding their dogs," he said. "The bright side, for me, as someone interested in animal wellness, is people are asking questions now."
___

Associated Press writers Andrew Bridges in Washington, Jesse Harlan Alderman in Boston, and Marcus Wohlsen in San Francisco contributed to this report.

___
On the Net:

FDA pet food recall information: http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/petfood.html

(Corrects number of pet deaths to about 15, instead of 15 as stated in previous version, to reflect that the FDA's total is not precise.)

Don't feed Alpo Prime Cuts

Readers,
Please read, and take to heart, this urgent plea posted today on Boreal from the companion-owner of labradoodle Buckshot.
Also don't assume that anything on grocery shelves is safe, especially if it is commercially-processed wet or canned food, the most frequent source of the poison that alas, reaches even into our remote county (though not the only source; be careful even about commercial dry foods unless you are sure they are safe).
True

To: Boreal News
Please! If you are feeding "Alpo Prime Cuts in Gravy With Beef" canned
dog food, please check the cans for foods made at plant 1159. I purchased
a case of Alpo from Sam's Club in Duluth in February. Our 2 years old
labradoodle "Buckshot" became violently ill, had a seizure, diarrhea,
vomiting, after eating 3 cans of Alpo with this stamp on the bottom
"BEST BEFORE DEC 2008 63401159-l34850244 "

Alpo just recalled foods made at plant 1159 bearing the codes from 7037
to 7053 - (not the same as the above numbers, so be careful!)

Thank God we were in the process of switching him over from Puppy Chow,
which I supplemented with 1/2 can of Alpo to make it more tasty, to
adult dry dog food that he much more enjoyed, so I did not keep feeding him
supplemental Alpo! Buckshot is a huge dog - over 80 lbs., strong and
healthy 2 years old, and feeding him 1/2 can of tainted Alpo for a few days
almost killed him. Some cans of Alpo contain contaminated wheat gluten, which
was imported from China with melamine (fertilizer) contamination.

We are happy to report Buckshot has returned to his normal romping
puppy/adolescent happy self!

Lilean Nicolaison

Corporate pet foods

Dear True,
Perhaps you and others have been following with dismay the reports of kidney failure in cats and dogs due to poison in their foods. Cats have suffered most, because of their special sensitivities to pollutants.
It has been at least 25 years since I have fed my companion animals anything except the highest quality foods, thanks to working for a visionary veterinarian in the Cities. Nonetheless, even supposedly high quality producers like Nutro Max and Iams have bought wheat gluten from the besieged Canadian company thought to have introduced rat poison and/or plastics into their product.
This is perhaps a tragic accident. However, my own little ones will not suffer from it because I feed them only dry food from suppliers at the Whole Foods Coop, or human-quality foods from the grocery store.
You might be surprised that canned fish such as tuna, mackeral and salmon don't cost more than canned moist pet foods. And for puppy training (a monumental task I am engaged in), small bits of cheese and Triscuit crackers are as effective as the often-sugar loaded treat biscuits by Alpo, Milk Bone, etc...
It's like everything else: huge corporate farming has increased the risk of bacterial poisoning, hormonal or antibiotic poisoning, and if that were not enough, has caused untold suffering to every animal bred for food.
My own little loves will never suffer death on account of their food. Please consider buying either human-quality moist food or coop dried food.
Nancye Belding
Grand Marais

Trout Travels

George Wilkes of Angry Trout fame was recently in Lanesboro, MN rightfully extolling the virtues of cuisine based on local, green and organic sources. Click the above link to read the entire story.

True