Farms or Factories

So when is a farm not a farm? And when is it a stretch to call someone a farmer? You know the Truly Irish advert with a "farmer" standing in a lovely green field talking about his pigs? Except there are no pigs to be seen. I'm fairly certain if the advert had shown the reality, sales of Truly Irish pork and bacon would have nose dived (at least initially). Consumers have very short memories.

We are used to seeing cattle grazing on lush green grass here for 6-8 months of the year, sheep all year round. But how often have you seen any quantity of pigs or chickens?

Pigs and chickens are reared here in what they call CAFOS in the US. Concentrated animal feeding operations. Over there most beef is produced in these. We just produce pigs and chickens in cafos.

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ieet.org

The animals are raised intensively with little space and with little chance to behave as animals are supposed to. Cattle in feed lots can't graze and are instead fed concentrates of corn/soy - for the most part genetically modified. These cereals are primarily modified to withstand repeated applications of Roundup, the herbicide that the WHO has acknowledged to be "probably carcinogenic".  Cattle are natural grazers and this is an unnatural diet. Because of this, a harmless gut bacterium called E. coli has mutated into the very dangerous form, E.coli 015:H7 or hemorrhagic E. coli. The bacterium is spread rapidly through all the animals as they live knee deep in their own excrement for their lifetime.

• Enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) is a bacterium that can cause severe foodborne disease.
• In most cases, the illness is self-limiting, but it may lead to a life-threatening disease including haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), especially in young children and the elderly.

Source http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs125/en/

E. coil 0157H7 has now become so widespread it is being called an epidemic. Official estimates reveal that E. coli is killing as many as 500 people a year and causing another 20,000 people to become sick.

Source http://www.projectcensored.org/25-e-coli-now-a-national-epidemic-kills-500-americans-annually/

Pigs are raised in concrete houses and are not given bedding. This is supposedly to prevent the spread of disease. Animals that are natural rooters cannot root on concrete and so resort to eating each other's tails. To prevent this they have their tails docked. They often have their teeth removed as well. If anyone doubts me go to an abattoir on a kill day and look at the pigs being unloaded. Apart from the fact that they absolutely stink, they have had their tail stumps bitten and are often bleeding, they have excrement smeared all over their bodies. They also have to be fed antibiotics as a prophylactic (just in case) and this excrement is pumped out of giant pig housing units into the environment. Methicillin resistant Staph aureus MRSA is the result of this practice.

MRSA is the bacteria that you do not want to become infected with post op. If you do, you should bend over and kiss your ass good bye, as someone once memorably said to me as I was about to jump a huge drain out hunting.

Chickens and eggs are produced the same way even, "free range". I have written at length about this in previous posts. I worked in an intensive turkey plant for 4 years so I have extensive experience of it.

So how is this style of food production still being called farming?

"New guidelines on food labelling have been issued by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), which it says will help ensure consumers are not misled by the use of marketing terms on foods." Read more

So why is farming not being defined? I for one do not consider intensive animal production is farming. In order to satisfy the demand for cheap food we raise animals intensively. However, there is no such thing as a free lunch and if we have caused bacteria to mutate and become resistant to antibiotics or at worst deadly then we are paying a very high price indeed for our cheap pork chops.

Apart from the cruelty (can you imagine the outcry if dogs or cats were treated in this manner?) Even if you don't care about the cruelty and you have no interest where your meat comes from. Even if as far as you are concerned, the cheaper the better, think about this......

How would you feel if a member of your family in hospital after a minor surgery becomes infected with MRSA, which does not respond to the cocktail of antibiotics administered?

How would you feel if your small child or your elderly parent ate meat contaminated with E. coli 0157:H7 and died from kidney failure?


I think this image says it all. Is it not time we started to ask the question?

What is farming?

Out of the Mouth.....

You know that saying "out of the mouth of babes.............?" Yea, that one. Came to mind the other day helping a student with an assignment. He was convinced that with all our food safety controls nowadays - HACCP, BRC etc. that the incidence of food poisoning must be way down. Felt almost bad telling him the exact opposite was the case. The incidence has risen exponentially and this is without most people bothering to report.

Then I read an article published in the Daily Mail (yes they do sometimes have good, well-researched articles on food and health, even if they are atrocious at almost everything else) about why scientists think raw milk is one of the world's most dangerous foods. I always remember my grandmother saying "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." I think in our modern world this really applies so much more. The fact is even with all our science, technology and knowledge we are still appallingly ignorant about so much to do with nutrition. It is only recently that scientists and medics are beginning to acknowledge that we were sold a pig in a poke about saturated fat being responsible for all coronary heart disease.

The fact is that raw milk produced from a well looked after and well fed dairy herd and refrigerated immediately after milking is good for you. Our ancestors drank it with far less technology than is available now and it did them no harm and probably did them a world of good. Do you know that the incidence of transmission of TB from raw milk is less than 1%? Now I'm not disputing that this may be due to increased surveillance and testing in our national herd but I really remain convinced that TB is a disease of poverty, malnutrition and bad hygiene and has little to do with milk.

The fact is that our food production has become highly mechanised and intensive. I rear free range pigs, who have acres to roam and I have never smelled pig. But, when a lorry drives down my road transporting intensively reared factory pigs the stench lingers for ages. I often wonder how meat from these poor animals can be healthy when they smell so bad.

I was told that potato (our food staple) is sprayed 7-9 times for blight and then finally with Roundup (a probable carcinogen according to the WHO) to kill the foliage before harvest. Wheat seed is soaked in Roundup before sowing to "eliminate" weeds.

And then people are laughed at when they say they are intolerant to gluten because when they remove it from their diet they feel better. The chances are that it is Roundup they are intolerant to. And removing gluten and let's face it - crap bread - makes them feel better. Replace this crap bread with real bread or sourdough and the chances are they will feel great. Sadly, the availability of real bread is abysmal in this country, especially in non-urban areas.

And then to cap it all, that old chesnut, we are living longer. Go back, look at the records or read this.
I don't ever remember hearing about Alzheimer's, autism, ADHD, or so much cancer in the very young when I was growing up or even as an adult, as now.

So what has changed? Why is there more food poisoning? Why are people saying they are intolerant to wheat and gluten? Why are there so many children with autism? Why is there so much cancer? Why are so many old and not so old being diagnosed with Alzheimer's/dementia?

Why are food and pharma companies now so massively profitable?

Why indeed.

As the Americans say "do the math"........

Dear Tesco 2

Dear Tesco,

I don't know why I'm bothering to write to you again but here goes.

Firstly, I am not a customer of yours. I gave up on you long since. I just pop in occasionally to buy Fever Tree tonic (shame you only stock the low calorie option.)

Yesterday I had to run in to get a wedding card. And as I was there I couldn't resist having a pooch. I was half thinking of getting some veg. I normally buy my veg from a "chemical free" grower (organic but just not registered) so I know what's in season at all times of the year. However, when I looked at the seasonal selection I couldn't believe my eyes.

A selection of French beans, mange tout, sprouting broccoli and baby corn from a range of countries including Egypt, India, Peru and Zimbabwe. There were more but I just can't remember.

Several things ran through my mind. Firstly, well they are providing a living for growers, pickers, packers and transporters in the relevant countries. That they (Tesco) can transport them half way around the globe, sell them relatively competitively and make a profit shows how little these people probably get for them.

But also these are not EU countries so they are not governed by EU legislation with respect to pesticide, insecticide, artificial fertiliser application. There is precious little residue testing at port of entry, here anyway as I discovered a few years ago. I wanted to get this information on fruit we were using in the bakery I managed and just came up time and time again against brick walls until finally, someone admitted to me they just don't have the financing.

So instead of giving Irish growers (governed by EU legislation) a living, we import vegetables that can very easily be grown here at this time of the year. In the depths of winter I can understand importing it. Why anyone would want to eat it is beyond me but that is their choice and modern consumerism.

I am lucky I have the choice to buy my fruit and vegetables grown locally. Lucky too that I can buy "organic" cheaper than most supermarkets and green grocers. But I wonder does the average customer care? When I pointed it out to the Tesco employee, he told me he had never noticed before but he would pass it on.

Then as I walked away, he said "for all the good it will do."

Tesco, you are losing market share hand over fist to the German discounters. They stock loads more Irish products including fruit and vegetables. Maybe you should take a walk down their aisles?