Tag: food

Mexico to Replace 16 Million Tons of GMO Corn with Native Maize

In addition to banning Monsanto/Bayer’s cancer-causing Roundup herbicide by 2024, Mexico is now pledging to rid the country of GMO corn by the same date.

To do so, it plans to gradually replace 16 million tons in annual imports of GMO corn from the United States with ancient, indigenous varieties.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador first made the decree on January 2, noting that bio-security authorities would “revoke and refrain from granting permits for the release of genetically modified corn seeds into the environment.”

Following through with that promise, Mexican health safety regulators just denied a permit for Monsanto/Bayer’s latest GMO corn variety last month.

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Bill Gates and the Uncertain Future of Food Security

As we approach a winter of discontent and Global food systems go from bad to worse, there’s trouble in paradise.

At the root of these problems, Government responses to COVID-19 have contributed to a six-fold increase in famine-like conditions as global supply chains collapse, and field trials for gene-edited crops and farm animals begin in the UK.

Against this perfect storm, the UN’s World Food Systems Summit convened last month, with Member States joining the private sector, civil society groups and researchers, to bring about “tangible, positive changes” to the world’s food systems, and as the story goes, “drive recovery from COVID-19.”

But even if we could solve our problems using the same logic that created them, there are deeper, institutional problems undermining the integrity of the Summit.

Specifically, its corporate capture by one man, whose vision of the future of food security places the interests of civil society and farming communities in a different universe to the corporations he is beholden to.

A household name on the world stage of disaster-capitalism, there is more to Bill Gates than doomsayer-general terrorising the world’s population into a permanent state of suspended animation, and it typically involves the future of food security.

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Amazon Caught Throwing Away Tons of Unexpired Food as US Faces Unprecedented Food Insecurity

Food insecurity in the Land of the Free is at a historical high. Thanks to the fed printing trillions to pay for their irresponsible and economically devastating lockdown policies, food costs have gone through the roof, supply chains are disrupted, there are fewer workers, and the impact is empty shelves. According to a report in Bloomberg, some of the countries largest food distributors are reporting difficulties in fulfilling orders.

Naturally, if the retail food supply is in a rut, the food banks and charities reflect this. The U.S. Census Bureau reported in March that as many as 9 million children live in a household where they don’t eat enough because the parents can’t afford it. And now, those who are able to donate, can’t due to shortages in the supply chain.

One company, however, isn’t reporting any shortages and, according to a shocking account, has an excess so large, they are throwing thousands of pounds of food away every single day.

An anonymous whistleblower from inside Amazon has exposed a practice by the delivery giant that removes any claims of Amazon running an efficient and sustainable ship. This person claims to be an employee inside an Amazon warehouse and has provided photographs of thousands of food items being destroyed on a daily basis — with the expiration dates days or weeks away.

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Vaccines in your salad? Scientists growing medicine-filled plants to replace injections

Vaccinations can be a controversial subject for many people, especially when it comes to injections. So what if you could replace your next shot with a salad instead? Researchers at the University of California-Riverside are working on a way to grow edible plants that carry the same medication as an mRNA vaccine.

The COVID-19 vaccine is one of the many inoculations which use messenger RNA (mRNA) technology to defeat viruses. They work by teaching cells from the immune system to recognize and attack a certain infectious disease. Unfortunately, mRNA vaccines have to stay in cold storage until use or they lose stability. The UC-Riverside team says if they’re successful, the public could eat plant-based mRNA vaccines — which could also survive at room temperature.

Thanks to a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, researchers are now looking to accomplish three goals. First, the team will try to successfully deliver DNA containing mRNA vaccines into plant cells, where they can replicate. Next, the study authors want to show that plants can actually produce enough mRNA to replace a traditional injection. Finally, the team will need to determine the right dosage people will need to eat to properly replace vaccinations.

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Amish Farm Fined $250,000, Facing Jail Time For Humanely Raising & Selling Food To Willing Customers

Amos Miller and his family has been running Miller’s Organic Farm for over a century, providing willing and highly satisfied customers with milk, chicken, beef, and eggs. All of the food coming from Miller’s farm is beyond organic, humanely raised in a non-factory setting and the animals treated with dignity as they spend their entire lives naturally and stress-free out on pasture. By any moral standard, Miller’s farm is the leading example of what farming in America should look like.

Unfortunately, because Miller uses humane techniques and treats his animals well, this has put a government target on his back. Recently, federal Judge Edward G. Smith, imposed sanctions on his farm, ordering the family farm to pay over $250,000 in fines or go to jail. Because the Millers don’t use the USDA factory farm methods, this makes them non-compliant and thus an enemy of the state.

“In order to effect defendants’ future compliance, by making them aware of the seriousness of their violations and the consequences for future violations, defendants are ordered to pay to the United States, within 30 days of the date of entry of this Order — and pursuant to written instructions that the United States will provide to defendants—a fine of $250,000, or face further monetary and other penalties, possibly including imprisonment of Amos Miller,” the order says.

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Study shows common insecticide is harmful in any amount

A new UC Riverside study shows that a type of insecticide made for commercial plant nurseries is harmful to a typical bee even when applied well below the label rate.

The study was published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Chemically similar to nicotine, neonicotinoids are insecticides that protect against plant-consuming insects like aphids, but seriously harm beneficial insects, like bees. They are widely used by commercial growers.

Much research has focused on their use in food crops like canola, in which they are typically applied at low doses. However, this study is one of the few to examine neonicotinoid application in potted ornamental plants, which can represent more potent, acute sources of exposure to the toxin for bees.

“Neonicotinoids are often used on food crops as a seed treatment,” explained UCR entomologist and lead study author Jacob Cecala. “But they’re usually applied in higher amounts to ornamental plants for aesthetic reasons. The effects are deadly no matter how much the plants are watered.”

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Bacon may disappear in California once pig rules are enforced

Thanks to the reworked menu and a long time, Jinny Kim was able to keep the San Francisco restaurant alive during the coronavirus pandemic.

So I’m worried that breakfast-focused diners will be ruined within a few months by new rules that can make it difficult to get bacon, one of California’s top menus. increase.

“Our number one sellers are bacon, eggs and hash browns,” said Kim, who has been running SAMS American Eatery for 15 years on the city’s bustling market streets. “It may be devastating to us.”

California will begin implementing animal welfare proposals overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2018 early next year. This requires more space for the breeding of pigs, laying hens and calves. Veal and egg producers across the country are optimistic that they can meet the new standards, but currently only 4% of pig breeding complies with the new rules. California has lost almost all of its pork supply, much of it from Iowa, and pork production, unless courts intervene or the state temporarily permits the sale of non-compliant meat in the state. Face higher costs to regain major markets.

Animal welfare organizations have sought more humane treatment of livestock for years, but California rules could be a rare case where consumers clearly pay a price for their beliefs. I have.

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The latest example of ‘white privilege’: Eating French food

White privilege. White supremacy. White fragility. Whiteness. For the academic left, there’s no aspect of life which cannot be shoehorned into a relationship with these terms.

Law (yes, law) professor Mathilde Cohen of the University of Connecticut recently gave a talk at Sciences Po Paris and the University of Nanterre in which, according to The Times, she argued “French eating habits reinforced the ‘dominance’ of white people over ethnic minorities.”

“By this,” Cohen says in the clip below, “I mean the use of food to reinforce whiteness as a dominant racial identity.

“The French meal is often presented as the national ritual to which every citizen can participate equally. But French food ways are shaped by white middle- and upper-class norms … and the boundaries of whiteness are policed through daily food encounters.”

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French food is now racist, according to professor who studies ‘food whiteness’ and ‘food privileges’

The Times U.K. reported that a video of Mathilde Cohen discussing the issue for a seminar outside Paris is upsetting folks in France, as the paper noted that the country’s cuisine is “seen as a cornerstone of the national identity.”

Cohen, who hails from the University of Connecticut School of Law, suggested that French eating habits reinforce the “dominance” of white people over ethnic minorities, the Times U.K. said.

An academic paper that was part of Cohen’s seminar asserts that France’s “eating culture … has been the central means of racial and ethnic identity formation through slavery, colonialism, and immigration. The whiteness of French food is all the more powerful in that it is unnamed, enabling the racial majority to benefit from food privileges without having to acknowledge their racial origin,” the Times U.K. added.

Here’s Cohen on video discussing “food whiteness in French culture,” which she said also can be defined as “the use of food to reinforce whiteness as a dominant racial identity.”

In the clip, Cohen says “the French meal is often presented as a national ritual to which every citizen can participate equally. But French food ways are shaped by white middle- and upper-class norms … the boundaries of whiteness are policed through daily food encounters.”

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