It's been almost a year since I created this blog. I have to confess, my journey has not been going as well as I'd hoped. In fact, it isn't particularly going at all. I don't seem to have the willpower and/or fortitude to try to help my daughter eat better. Heck. I can't even make myself eat better.
I look around at the food supply. American food is totally depleted of all nutritional value! It begins at the factory farms, where the vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients have been totally leached out of the soil for years. Plants cannot absorb nutrients out of the soil if those nutrients aren't there in the first place! Then there is the fact that so many chemicals are sprayed on the plants--herbicides and pesticides--until they are one big chemical mess! Don't even get me started on meat production!
If this wasn't bad enough, the plants and animals go to factories, where they are turned into products we eat. Notice I didn't say food we eat. It wasn't food when we harvested it from the soil. It's even less likely to be food once it is processed! Any nutrition that has the stamina to survive the fields is totally cooked, fried, or irradiated out of it. There is no life of any kind in this processed food. It is DEAD FOOD! How bodies survive on the crap we feed them is truly a miracle. Then when you understand that what is added into this processed mess at the factory is more chemicals so that you physically CRAVE this manure, the end result is fat, unhealthy bodies. (For much more in depth reading on this subject, I highly encourage you to read
Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser.)
The government is also a HUGE PROBLEM when it comes to healthy food. Thanks to the influence of big corporations (who process most of our food supply and have a vested interest in making customers unhealthy to enhance their own bottom lines), our legislatures at the local, state and federal levels keep us from actually accessing healthy food! How, you ask?
Let's look at the federal level--some of the biggest offenders that affect us all. First of all, Congress passes laws which favor the big factory farms and processing factories, adding regulation after regulation that only these large farms can afford (because they are the ones that are awarded billions of dollars in farm subsidies). Such regulations include having to pay for government inspections to inspect your farms for violations of the laws, endless paperwork, etc. Of course, our wonderful legislators do this in the name of "protecting our health". Then, the enforcement arms of the federal government (aka the FDA and the USDA) come in and crack down on farmers who are actually trying to produce healthy, organic food while allowing the big factory farms to continue to operate after it has been
proven that massive outbreaks of foodbourne bacteria have already been widely distributed in their products (and sickened or killed people in the process!).
At the state level, our wonderful legislators take laws to a different place, very often taking away our rights to specific healthy foods. For example, here in Georgia our pets can drink healthier milk than humans can! This is because it is illegal to sell raw milk (non-pasteurized, non-homoginized) for human consumption. I personally would love to have access to raw milk because of the healthy bacteria (probiotics) it naturally contains. Ironically, these dairy farmers still have to go through the rigorous testing required of the big factory farms, and they do it without violating health standards! State legislators also put more and more regulations on things like farmers markets and roadside stands (where you actually stand a chance of accessing healthier, more organic foods).
At the local level, they take away our rights to providing ourselves with our own healthy foods! It is quite common anymore to read stories about how people are prosecuted for growing vegetables in their front yards and fined substantially for having "farm animals" (such as chickens) in an area considered non-rural.
The combination of all these actions result in our inability to gain access to wholesome, healthy food! Is it any wonder we have record levels of obesity, ADHD, autism, cancer, heart disease, depression, bipolar, schizphrenia, etc., etc.? If we continue to turn a blind eye to what is actually in the food we eat, we will continue to grow sicker and die sooner.
In layman's terms, glyphosate was found to to have almost no negative impact on harmful bacteria such as various strains of salmonella and botulism. In addition, several types of healthy bacteria (the kind we need to aid digestion and immune system function) were found to be moderately to highly susceptible to glyphostate.
