Organic foods can help preserve life

By Shawntell Muhammad | Last updated: Feb 5, 2013 - 10:54:52 AM

“Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food.” —Imhotep

With the monetary increase in healthcare, the adverse effects of medication, and more people adopting a natural lifestyle, organic food consumption is on the rise. There was once a time when people wanted to prevent or treat an illness, without question, they went into their kitchens. Fresh local produce, milk, eggs, and other staples were readily available.

Today, with a wide array of choices from fast food, and dine-in restaurants, to a plethora of items to select from in grocery stores, food has become a major culprit in the illnesses people are plagued with.

Unwittingly, people are feeding themselves and their families toxins disguised as good tasting, healthy food.

Food and beverages containing high fructose corn syrup, cannot be labeled as organic. High fructose corn syrup has been linked to increased obesity along with correlating health risks such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and coronary artery disease.

In 1996, genetically modified food hit the market. These foods are derived from genetically modified organisms, specifically genetically modified crops. All of which takes place inside a laboratory.

There are numerous studies and reports linking genetically modified food with cancer and autism. There are a few informative documentaries and books, detailing the origin and risk of gmo consumption.

Consumers of dairy (milk, mayonnaise, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, butter) and eggs should definitely watch out for recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST) and recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) or artificial growth hormone, these hormones are made in a lab using genetic technology. They have also been linked to cancer.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) according to a blog at usda.gov, does not allow genetically modified food to have the label “organic.”

The USDA’s organic guidelines are supposed to ensure that the public is getting a 100 percent organic product. To be certified as organic, companies must not use pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, synthetic fertilizers, bioengineering, and radiation.

However, a sizable amount of organic food is imported from China. So far there is little evidence crops from China are tainted or fraudulently labeled. Any food that bears the USDA Organic label has to be accredited by an independent certifier. But tests are few and far between.

Mark Kastel, director of the Organic Integrity Project at Cornucopia Institute, an advocacy group promoting small family farms, says, “Two major organic dairy companies operate massive corporate farms. One farm has 8,000 cows in the Idaho desert. There, the animals consume such feed as corn, barley, hay, and soybeans, as well as some grass from pastureland.”

The company is currently reconfiguring its facility to allow more grazing opportunities. And none of this breaks USDA rules. The agency simply says animals must have “access to pasture.” How much is not spelled out. “It doesn’t say livestock have to be out there, happy and feeding, 18 hours a day, says Barbara C. Robinson, who oversees the USDA’s National Organic Program.

To prevent GMOs from being introduced into organic production, producers do not use genetically modified seeds or other materials when planting crops. They also work with their certifiers to implement preventative practices that effectively buffer their farms from GMO contamination.

Organic food handlers and processors also ensure that their ingredients are not produced from excluded methods. Certifying agents review and audit all of ingredients–not only the agricultural ingredients but also others that are allowed in organic processing, like baking soda, yeast, dairy cultures, and vitamins–to verify that they are not genetically modified.

All of these measures are documented in operations’ organic systems plans, a crucial element of USDA organic certification that outlines detailed practices and procedures addressing how operators comply with the requirements of the organic regulations.

No matter where the product is grown or how the product is made, if it has the USDA Organic label on it, genetic engineering or genetically modified organisms are not to be allowed.

Speaking to an audience in Barbados, Min. Farrakhan stated, “When food production is in the hands of outsiders, health is in the hands of someone else, leading to diseases like diabetes, and subsequent amputations.”

“There are fast food outlets but you don’t know what the food is and where it comes from.”

Organic farming is a $30 billion industry. While organic food is the best choice available at the grocery stores, growing our own food is better. When you grow your own food, you know for sure, there are close to no impurities in the food.

Organic foods may have higher nutritional value than conventional food, according to some research. The reason: In the absence of pesticides and fertilizers, plants boost their production of the phytochemicals (vitamins and antioxidants) that strengthen their resistance to bugs and weeds. Some studies have linked pesticides in our food to everything from headaches to cancer to birth defects. Even low-level pesticide exposure, however, can be significantly more toxic for fetuses and children (due to their less-developed immune systems) and for pregnant women (it puts added strain on their already taxed organs), according to a report by the National Academy of Sciences.

In “How to Eat to Live,” The Hon. Elijah Muhammad states, “In this poison world, there are scientists who are experimenting with poison and are experimenting on how to kill or maim people so that they will die later from eating the wrong foods and from breathing this poison atmosphere. It is very hard for a person who wants to eat the proper food to find anything like good food in this poison world, so that this life may be prolonged, because such people as the scientists have poisoned the food.”

Charles Benbrook, A professor at the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources at Washington State University, and served for many years as the chief scientist for The Organic Center, calculated a jump of 527 million pounds in herbicides only partially offset by a drop of 123 million pounds in insecticides over a 16-year period. He further projected that the herbicide situation will get worse and that the GMO-induced insecticide decrease is only temporary. Pests will continue to evolve resistance to older technologies, said Benbrook, as well as to new technologies developed to protect crops from greater use of older, generally more toxic pesticides.

According to a report published in the Environmental Sciences Europe journal, “Estimates show that the engineering of crops immune to the same chemical compound that poisons weeds, and of crops capable of producing their own insecticides, has resulted in an additional 404 million pounds of toxic pesticides doused on U.S. fields between 1996—when genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were first introduced as farm crops—and 2011.”

“Before biotech came on the market, we had one airplane in the county to do all the aerial spraying,” said Scott McAllister, an Iowa farmer. “Now they bring in seven or eight. We’ve got the same acreage of crops. They’re just spraying more.” He added that he’s seen a rise in the number of children with autism, allergies and cancer around his hometown of Mount Pleasant, Iowa.

(Shawntell Muhammad is operator of Organic Nourishment which includes holistic grocery shopping tours and nutritional guidance. For more information, e-mail [email protected].)

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