--> Because these two plants are among nature's most efficient transformers of sunlight and chemical fertilizer into carbohydrate energy (in the case of corn) and fat and protein (in the case of soy)—if you want to extract the maximum amount of macronutrients from the American farm belt, corn and soy are the crops to plant. (It helps that the government pays farmers to grow corn and soy, subsidizing every bushel they produce. |  Before a product can be labeled 'organic,' a government-approved certifier inspects the farm where the food is grown to make sure the farmer is following all the rules necessary to meet USDA organic standards. Companies that handle or process organic food before it gets to your local supermarket or restaurant must be certified, too."
What does any of this have to do with cosmetics? Many consumers are already attracted to any cosmetic that claims to be natural, no matter how bogus the claim. |  Ethanol from corn is so energy inefficient that it takes almost exactly one barrel of oil from somewhere else to farm, harvest, process and produce one barrel of oil equivalent energy from corn. In other words, it's just a massive U.S. energy shell game with absolutely no net gain in energy production, but a huge net loss in food production. Corn prices are already skyrocketing because of the ramp up in ethanol production from corn.
The only people promoting ethanol production from corn are corn farmers, politicians or complete idiots. Some people are all three. | | Nowhere is greenwashing more overhyped than in the ethanol biofuels industry, where gullible consumers are being told that we can simply farm our way out of an oil crisis by -- get this -- converting most of our food into fuel! Ethanol from corn is so energy inefficient that it takes almost exactly one barrel of oil from somewhere else to farm, harvest, process and produce one barrel of oil equivalent energy from corn. In other words, it's just a massive U.S. energy shell game with absolutely no net gain in energy production, but a huge net loss in food production. |  She and her husband lived on their farm. He was a very prominent man, whose work regularly took him away from home, leaving the chores to Joan. Meanwhile, Joan had a retail business to run in addition to managing the farm and horses. She had a demanding mother and an equally demanding mother-in-law living with her. She also had a child with emotional issues. On top of this, Joan was a perfectionist and wanted everything done right. There was simply no way she could handle everything she "carried on her back," which eventually broke under the weight of her responsibilities. |  But dishonest plantation owners played a cruel trick on the indentured servants: They had to buy their farm tools and supplies from the plantation owner. But they couldn't pay cash since they didn't have any money, so they were forced to extend their work commitment in exchange for tools and supplies.
A shovel, for example, might cost you another month on the farm. A set of work clothes might cost you two months more. |  An organic, locally-farmed apple from a small family farm tells a very different story: Respect for nature, positive intention, healthful soils, humility in nature, connection with plants and animals, biodiversity, minimal use of fossil fuels, and so on. This is the kind of apple I'd like to eat… how about you?
Now here's the real kicker in all this: When you eat an apple, you absorb and assimilate the story that went into creating that apple! |  Although the final rule was just published in the Federal Register, The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based farm policy research group, is asking the USDA to reopen the proceeding for public comment. Cornucopia contends that the rule was never effectively announced to the public, and that the reasoning behind both the necessity and safety of the sterilization processes should be questioned before the rule goes into effect this September.
"The new rule is unwarranted and could have many harmful impacts," said Mark Kastel, senior farm policy analyst at Cornucopia. |  They witnessed first-hand things like a farm where there are 4,000 animals, but only a few hundred acres of pasture. You cannot possibly pasture animals on that little pasture, especially when they are in semi-arid parts of Idaho, Colorado and West Texas.
Then beyond that, workers on these farms started coming forth as whistleblowers. There was a story in the Chicago Tribune about one of these whistleblowers who pointed out that these cows are not put out to pasture. The only time they are put out to pasture is when there is a media organization or an important person coming out. | | That is common practice nowadays on a conventional dairy farm. Then, you feed them primarily grains that are genetically engineered, but mixed in with those grains are things that make the animals grow faster and put on weight, like slaughterhouse waste - basically ground up pigs, chickens, dogs, cats and everything else are fed to them.
They found out all these factory poultry farms around the country were producing billions of pounds of manure that pollute the environment. What can we do with all this manure? Presto, they feed it back to cows. | | We are going to chain up our cows and milk them three times a day, and they will never get out pasturing unless there is a news organization coming to the farm that day. We will still call it organic." They have been doing this for four years, and there have been complaints from the Organic Consumers Association and organic farmers all over the country.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has completely ignored these complaints for four years. |  The nonprofit group also built the farm Subsidy Database2 that tracks billions of dollars paid in government farm subsidies so anyone can go online and find out who gets the checks. EWG liked to tell the story about the time the US Department of Agriculture called them to ask for a sort on the database.
The Power of Information. The goal of the Environmental Working Group is to shine light on industry and government dealings and empower the public with facts. |  Gary and the vets gave up on this filly and sent her out to a farm since she could not be trained and was taking up valuable stall space at the racetrack.
Upon my arrival to the farm, I found a thin filly despondently looking out of the stall. She had copious white mucus glued around each nostril. Her eyes were running clear tears down her face. The feed in her bucket was barely touched. Her overall body language was one of total despair and lack of vital energy. The vet determined that her immune system was severely repressed and needed some help. | | And yet, not surprisingly, when most consumers have a choice between a $3 apple grown on a farm that pays legal wages to U.S. workers and a $1 apple grown on a farm that pays "illegal" wages to an undocumented worker from Mexico, most Americans will choose the $1 apple (and in doing so, they are in fact continuing to vote for the very illegal immigration they claim to oppose).
Challenging to consumers
Making an informed produce purchasing decision at the grocery store, it turns out, is nearly impossible these days. |  In Hampshire, England, a whole Iron Age farm, the "Butser farm," has been replicated to the conditions of about 300 B.C., including a thatched roof farmhouse and other structures. This farm has provided many insights into such matters as ancient crop yields and the effectiveness of various old farming implements and techniques. The replica buildings have provided information about their strength and the application and reliability of materials. |  One traveler, standing on a farm in Idaho and concentrating on a herd of cows, was distracted by an irrigation ditch several yards down the road. He was sufficiently fascinated by the ditch to photograph it and note it in his description. The remote viewer in New Jersey, flicking up the scene before it had happened, made no mention of cows at all in his description, but he did say that he was getting an image of farm buildings, fields and the irrigation ditch.'
Other scientific evidence supported the idea that human beings have the ability to 'see' the future. | | In Hampshire, England, a whole Iron Age farm, the "Butser farm," has been replicated to the conditions of about 300 B.C., including a thatched roof farmhouse and other structures. This farm has provided many insights into such matters as ancient crop yields and the effectiveness of various old farming implements and techniques. The replica buildings have provided information about their strength and the application and reliability of materials. |  If you live in a farm or orchard area, you may be subject to pesticide drifts. There are also often significant residues in foods, especially in foods imported from countries where there is no regulation in the use of pesticides."
Treatment of the wide range of illnesses arising from environmental chemicals must include education, enhanced nutrition, and nutritional supplements. "The pioneers in this field used to be called clinical ecologists, but they've now changed their name to the American Academy of Environmental Medicine," Dr. Buttram says. |  In fact, my yard is an aloe farm, and each day before I make my superfood breakfast smoothie, I walk out to my yard, slice off an aloe vera leaf, thank the plant for granting me its healing medicine, then I fillet the leaf and drop the aloe vera gel into my blender. A few minutes later, I'm enjoying the most impressive medicinal herb that nature has ever created. (Click here to see the new PhotoTour showing step-by-step pictures of how to fillet aloe vera and remove the inner gel. | | A shovel, for example, might cost you another month on the farm. A set of work clothes might cost you two months more. Little by little, the plantation owner enslaved the indentured servants in a never-ending cycle of debt that could only be repaid by a lifetime of work ending in death and bankruptcy.
Sound familiar? Americans are trapped in a lifetime of medical debt being paid to wealthy drug corporations. |  This was the farm of 91-year-old Ildifonso Zuniga and his wife, Segundina. Ildifonso was napping in a hammock on the porch; Segundina was hosting the guests. Ananias Baltoano and his wife, Aida—the middle-aged couple?had stopped by for a visit, which seemed normal enough until I learned that this visit had occasioned a two-hour, five-mile walk. They were, in the words of Segundina, neighbors. She told us to sit down, poured us a cup of coffee, and cut us giant pieces of sweet cornbread. We were now part of the family. | | I grew up on a farm, and I milked the cows, and I never did care for milk. I don't particularly care for eggs either."
"For quite a few years, I read the concerns about vegans not getting enough vitamin B)2 or protein or calcium; you know how it goes," he said. "They said even the amino acids in vegetables were not adequate. But we began to find out that much of these were old wives' tales. With the exception of lack of B12 being of some concern, you aren't going to become deficient in protein and all these things. | | When I visited, she was frail and hard of hearing, but when I asked what she enjoyed most during her days on the dairy farm, she blurted out the word "shneckens," a German pastry her daughter (now 80) said she always used to make. Ethel passed away less than a month after my last visit to Loma Linda, on July 1, 2007.
It still amazes me that Ethel Meilicke, Wayne McFar-land, Minnie Wood, Letha Graham, Ellsworth Wareham, and Marge Jetton all lived within a three-mile radius of one another, the youngest of them 93 (and still practicing open-heart surgery). | | They all lived with Panchita's parents until they died, then Panchita inherited their farm. There, the family grew most of their own food. When they needed salt or sugar, Panchita would walk the 18 miles to town and back to get it.
"Life was hard those days, Papi." She always called me Papi. "You can no longer cook me with a little bit of water," she said, referring to her age and that old tough meat takes longer to cook. As she spoke, she waved a finger at me. Spittle flew from her mouth, and her dangling legs kicked reflexively. |  This is true whether you live in a major metropolitan area or on a farm, as both locations present problems with air quality; it's nearly impossible to find a place anywhere in the world that has not been affected by pollution. Surprisingly, studies show that your risk of getting cancer from exposure to chemicals in the water and air in your home is actually greater than your risk from exposure to the same chemicals in a hazardous waste site. | | A worker packaging lettuce for shipping may accidentally label a box "organic" when in fact it came from the side of the farm that liberally sprays pesticides.
That said, organic foods routinely test higher on the nutrient scale as compared to their conventionally grown counterparts. And when they do carry signs of pesticide exposure, for the most part they contain a far lower amount of chemical residues. | | Agricultural toxins like pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides, as well as synthetic chemical additives (including hormones and antibiotics) that change our foods at the source—on the farm in soils and animals—continue to be a major concern, so much so that organic foods are quickly becoming mainstream across America in most regular grocery stores now that we are demanding higher-quality products. I just hope that federal regulators continue to keep the standards high when it comes to the term organic. | | The only exemption to these new regulations will be organic "raw" almonds that will not be fumigated, but will undergo the steam-heat treatment, and small-scale growers who can sell truly raw almonds but only direct to the public from farm stands.
Although foodborne illnesses have garnered headlines in recent years, including contamination of California-grown spinach and lettuce, raw produce and nuts are not inherently risky foods. | | The remote viewer in New Jersey, flicking up the scene before it had happened, made no mention of cows at all in his description, but he did say that he was getting an image of farm buildings, fields and the irrigation ditch.'
Other scientific evidence supported the idea that human beings have the ability to 'see' the future. The Maimonides Center's Charles Honorton put together a review of all well-conducted scientific experiments of most varieties. | |
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