Greetings!

We have a short letter for today.

Hope everyone enjoyed the 4th of July festivities. We have just been enjoying the nice warm weather ? not too hot and not too cold. It was certainly nice to see the sunshine.

Lou and I saw the documentary film ?Food, Inc.? produced by Robert Kenner this past week. It exposes the nation?s food industry, the role of the USDA and FDA, and shows how our industrialized food production is basically controlled by a few corporations. Corporations generally have their own interests at heart, not those of its consumer.

The movie discusses ?bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide resistant soybean seeds (which were patented by Monsanto), tomatoes that won?t go bad (picked green and ripened with ethylene gas) and new strains of E coli. Approximately 73,000 Americans are affected by E coli annually and some of those affected with this deadly bacteria die. The E coli incidences have increased due to feedlots and the use of corn as a feed for cattle, pigs, chickens. For those cattle raised in a feedlot the likelihood of E coli is much greater than those who are free ranged and fed grasses. If the cattle were allowed to grass feed the last five days before sending to the slaughterhouse, it would eliminate 80% of the e coli in those animals. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

The food industry represents its products depicting a rural farm scene, complete with barn, cows and pastures. In actuality, most of our food is grown on huge feedlots in less than pastoral conditions.

The food industry today has a huge impact upon our environment, our health, the nation?s economy and worker?s rights and working conditions.

We certainly didn?t feel like rushing to the grocery store after seeing the film, but it did bring to light the food industry and the impact our current food production is having on our health. The book is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Borders. The film is currently showing at the Landmark Lagoon theatre and well worth seeing. Food Inc Preview

The website offered the following suggestions on how we can work to change our food system, including: (1) stop drinking sodas and other sweetened beverages,
(2) eat at home,
(3) support the passage of laws requiring chain restaurants to post calorie and nutrition information on menus and menu boards,
(4) tell schools to stop selling sodas and junk foods ? over the last twenty years, rates of obesity in children and adolescents aged 6 to 19 years has tripled. There is an epidemic of diabetes among our young people today, so much that one of ever two black children will have diabetes in their lifetime.
(5) Go without meat one day a week ? an estimated 70% of all antibiotics used in the US are given to farm animals,
(6) buy organic or sustainable food with little or no pesticides,
(7) visit your local farmer?s market ? Farmer?s markets allow farmers to keep 80 ? 90% of their sales,
(8) read labels,
(9) tell Congress that food safety is important to you and,
(10) demand job protections for farm workers and food processors. Poverty among farm workers is more than twice that of all wage and salary employees.

The average American eats 200 pounds of meat per year. We have decided to track how much meat we consume. Meat includes not only beef and pork, but poultry and seafood.