Roots of Change - Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture [00:29:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (159)

Roots of Change (ROC) is a collaborative of diverse leaders and institutions unified in common pursuit of achieving a sustainable food system in California by 2030. In 1999, a group of California-based foundations came together to explore the challenges facing the current industrialized food system and to discover a means to maximize the impact of their investments in pursuit of a healthier system. In 2000, they commissioned and released Roots of Change: Agriculture, Ecology, and Health in California, a report that consolidated information from policy makers, farmers, scientists, and activists, as well as data from numerous state agencies. The report made the case that multiple environmental, social, and economic problems in California can be addressed simultaneously by a comprehensive transition to a sustainable food system.

California is the nation’s most populous state, the largest economy in the U.S., and the 7th largest economy in the world, the state has the resources to lead the way to a sustainable future. With an agricultural industry is twice the size of any other state, California is the nations largest food producer. Worldwide, California is the world’s fifth largest supplier of food and other agricultural commodities. Because California helps feed the nation and world, actions here will create waves of change. Changing the state’s food system will require that all Californians of every ethnicity, religious belief, political party, and region take part in this effort.

Michael Dimock is the president of ROC Coordinating Team. Michael has worked in the agricultural sector for seventeen years. He founded and directed a unique organization, Ag Innovations Network, which provides strategic planning and consensus building services to rural communities, farming and food companies, and government agencies focused on sustainability. He was Chairman of Slow Food USA (until January of 2006) and a member of the Slow Food International Board, and has been Chairman of the Board of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, the state’s oldest organization dedicated to sustainable family farms. Michael came to the ROC Fund following his leadership, as a grantee, of the ROC effort to build a statewide leadership network.

Visit ROC website: http://www.rocfund.org, and to read the New Mainstream Report to see what a sustainable food system looks like: http://www.rocfund.org/resources/reports/the-vivid-picture-project-reports

Read and Sign the Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture http://www.fooddeclaration.org/

 

 Lance Hanson and Peak Spirits [00:27:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (167)

In 2001, Lance Hanson was a software engineer in California. He wasn’t looking for a life change or a reason to leave. After a visit to a family farm Colorado, things changed.”Here we were, on the road, talking about the farm, and felt a pull, a very strong pull.” “We had no background in farming, organic or otherwise. But suddenly we envisioned something bigger.”

The Hansons sold their home in California and were back on Redlands Mesa within two months. They moved into a small barn-apartment on the land, designed and built their new home, and opened Jack Rabbit Hill Winery in time to celebrate their first harvest in September 2002. As the first growers to raise grapes on Redlands Mesa - or anywhere
in the state outside of the Grand Valley - they faced challenges, not the least of which was a 1,400 foot jump in altitude.

Peak Spirits, an offshoot of Jack Rabbit Hill, is also Colorado’s only organic distillery. The label’s brandy, made from fresh, organic fruit, has made a name for itself nationally. Hanson’s Jack Rabbit Hill wines are also the first, and only, labels featured in the Sustainable Settings state-certified tasting room. Sustainable Settings - at the Thompson
Creek Ranch Homestead off Highway 133 in Carbondale - houses research, demonstration and educational activities focused on sustainable agriculture and green development.

Jack Rabbit Hill and Peak Spirits, two pioneering organic wine and spirits makers in western Colorado, are now Demeter-certified Biodynamic(R), completing a two-year transition from USDA-certified organic practices that began in March of 2006. The estate winery and
distillery are two of only 39 agricultural producers in North America to embrace the rigorous Demeter Biodynamic standard.

Visit Peak Spirits http://www.peakspirits.com/index.php

 

 #36 Food Watch with Wenonah Hauter - Zapped: Irradiation and the Death of Food [00:25:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (202)

Wenonah Hauter

is the executive director of Food & Water Watch. She has worked extensively on energy, food, water and environmental issues at the national, state and local level. Experienced in developing policy positions and legislative strategies, she is also a skilled and accomplished organizer, having lobbied and developed grassroots field strategy and action plans. From 1997 to 2005 she served as Director of Public Citizen’s Energy and Environment Program, which focused on water, food, and energy policy. From 1996 to 1997, she was environmental policy director for Citizen Action, where she worked with the organization’s 30 state–based groups. From 1989 to 1995 she was at the Union of Concerned Scientists where as a senior organizer, she coordinated broad–based, grassroots sustainable energy campaigns in several states. She has an M.S. in Applied Anthropology from the University of Maryland.

In her new book with co-author Mark Worth - Zapped: Irradiation and the Death of Food is a call to action for those of us who actually care about what we eat.

Lab animals fed irradiated food have developed illnesses from cancer to immune system failure. So why is the government pushing the same food on you? When food is exposed to ionizing radiation, it doesn’t hold up too well either. Irradiation can wilt and discolor food, and cause it to smell and taste nasty—apparently comparisons have been made to “burned feathers” and “wet dog” - yummmm. We also don’t have to swallow the lie that irradiating greens would prevent most cases of food born illness the greens may carry. The majority of food borne illness linked to greens come from viruses, not bacteria. Irradiation won’t kill the viruses — but it does increase the greens’ shelf-life. Nutritionally, irradiation is also a disaster, destroying up to 91% of Vitamin E, 90% of Vitamin C, 50% of Vitamin A, and 95% of Vitamin B1. So why would we do it?

The motivation for irradiating is of course, industry-driven. Irradiation allows food producers to store food longer, ship it farther, and avoid cleaning up dirty conditions at food production facilities. What this means for the consumer is older food, fewer vitamins, and continued risk of foodborne illness. Irradiation is ineffective against mad cow disease and several other threatening pathogens, so irradiating instead of improving sanitation at plants is simply paying lip service to food safety.

But it won’t kill you…right? Actually, we don’t know. Lab animals fed irradiated food have developed illnesses from cancer to immune system failure. Experiments on lab animals fed irradiated foods have shown ruptured hearts, sterility, blindness, internal bleeding, cancer, tumors, stillbirths, mutations, organ damage, immune system failure, stunted growth, and a host of other problems.

There just isn’t enough research. While there isn’t conclusive evidence that eating irradiated foods could have the same effects as being exposed to radiation itself, some studies seem to suggest it. Of course, onflicting studies do exist that show irradiated food as having no health effects whatsoever.

Order the Book: http://www.amazon.com/Zapped-Irradiation-Death-Wenonah-Hauter/dp/0980115701

Read More:

The FDA Approves Food Irradiation: Food That Makes You Sicker Rather Than Safer