From Food & Water Watch:
USDA officials under Agriculture Secretary Schafer are proposing irradiating beef carcasses in order to cover up the filth and contamination of E. Coli. Irradiation is just a band-aid solution for meat industry problems and could be harmful to consumers. Worst of all, the meat wouldn't have to be labeled as irradiated.
Find out more at the Food & Water Watch site.
And in more irradiation news, according to the New York Times, the FDA will allow producers to irradiate fresh spinach and iceberg lettuce, enough to kill e.coli and salmonella, a move not welcomed by groups like Food & Water Watch.
If you’re not familiar with food irradiation and the controversy surrounding it, please visit our Food Irradiation page for more information.
Ok...I do buy meats and such from the store. I am moving away from that more and more, which for right now mainly means changing our diets until we are better equipped here on the homestead.
The question for us is simple -- do I really want the government to slap a bandaid on my meat just to allow for questionable practices that have already proven to not work?
Don't know what your answer might be, but mine is a pretty loud, resounding NO.
Look at all the recalls we have out now. Look back over the past year. Look at the past several years. Nothing is safe anymore -- not our meat, not our animal feeds, not our vegetables. If it comes from the store, big money is behind it and it's just not going to be truly safe.
Some would argue that we've eaten store foods for generations and all has been just fine. I don't think that's the case at all and it a rather weak argument for plain ignorance of the facts. Look at the cancer rate in our society. Check out any illness rate between generations. Yes, our abilities of charting illness and recognizing it are better now than, say, in grandma's day, but still....it's a weak argument.
If you are content to follow the masses and eat grocery store foods, I'm certainly not going to judge you. I've been there...I'm still doing it so a small extent. My argument would be start taking a serious look at how you eat and what you eat and where it comes from. We have been raised in a society where convenience is more important and sought after than truly healthy. We pop a pill for this and that, whether its needed or not. We hit the doctor for every cough and sneeze looking for a quick cure and comfort. We want quick and we want easy without the slightest effort on our own part. We are sheep being led to slaughter slowly is what it amounts to..
Yeah, I know...someone oughtta' snatch up this soapbox. I get carried away from time to time. I don't eat as healthy as I know I need to. I a not teaching my children to form truly healthy eating habits either by my own example. But you kow what -- as far behind some organic nature-driven purists as I am, I am miles ahead of most folks out there. I have a brain and when I chooe to ignore the propoganda fed to me from big money government, I do pretty well.
2 comments:
These issues worry me as well. And did you know that soon our sugar will be genetically modified as well?
I had been thinking about getting a cow for the freezer from the local meat market. Perhaps that would be a better bet than the grocery stores? I don't know. There is so much to take into consideration these days.
They can't leave anything alone, can they?
We are working away from sugar, though so far only made it to fructose which is a better option in some ways, but still...
The beef from the local meat market would be a step better than the grocery store. We have a meat processor here that we have been buying from. Granted, the folks bringing beef in are probably using feeds with issues, but I do know several who don't and sell beef there. I guess I'd rather take my chances locally than with some beef imported from another area altogether.
Sometimes, when you can't raise it yourself, you just have to take the baby steps available to you to get the best you can get and rely totally on prayer!
Deanna
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