Eat organic for better health

About four months ago, I stumbled upon a book entitled "The Fatal Harvest" at my local library; it was put out by an organization called The Foundation for Deep Ecology.  Although my scheduled departure from the library that day was long past, I simply couldn't stop reading this book.  It was an eye-opener, to say the very least; and everything became so clear to me regarding the drastic decline in the general healthstates going on in our society in America. Theses days, obesity is prevalent, diabetes in Americans is widespread, cancer is way up; the list goes on and on.

The book's many essays and photographs demonstrate the tragic consequences of how the food we are offered for purchase in almost every 

grocery store in Anytown, USA; is produced.  It's a system of industrial food production that yields a 'fatal harvest.'  Taken from this book; I quote:

"Fatal to consumers, as the massive amounts of chemicals used in growing crops dramatically increase the incidence of cancer and other diseases; and as new bacteria, viruses, and other disease agents poison our food. Fatal to our rivers, lakes, and oceans that are polluted by pesticides, chemicals and waste from factory farms. Fatal to our vital topsoil, which is exhausted and eroded by our large-scale mono-cropping and overloaded with fertilizers.  Fatal to the genetic diversity of plants as corporate agriculture destroys countless species with its universal, high-yield crops and plantings of new genetically-engineered varieties. Fatal to our farm communities, which are wiped out by huge corporate farms.  Fatal to seed saving and collective ownership of seeds as a few transitional companies patent the seed of the earth.  Fatal to our food security as our patented crops become even more susceptible to

disease and insect infestation.  Fatal to wildlife as pesticides and habitat destruction force many species into extinction. Fatal; potentially, to the entire biosphere,  as modern industrial genetically-engineered agriculture contributes heavily to global environmental threats such as ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect, and mass species extinction."

As it poses the ecological and social impacts of industrial agriculture's fatal harvest, this book also details a new ecological and humane vision for our agriculture.  It shows how millions are now engaged in the new politics of food as they fight against the chemical and biotechnological inputs of industrial food.  The book further details how organic food became the fastest growing sector in American agriculture and how now many are going "beyond organic" to save small-scale farming, the wilderness, and wildlife.

I, myself, have noticed for years now, how many vegetables and fruits in grocery stores taste like 'nothing.'  Once I read this book, I understood why. Because it is with natural diversity in variety that comes the wonderful real taste of a fruit or vegetable.  Regarding varieties of fruits and vegetables, our choices are an 'illusion of choice', as the book states.  We go into the grocery store and it seems as though there is a multitude of choices of stuff - but it's really all just an illusion: there really are only four basic ingredients in most of the stuff we are offered up to buy.  Whereas there were 5,000 varieties of apples available in 1951, there are now just 4.  The seeds for the rest of them were confiscated and destroyed to be gotten nevermore.  Confiscated and destroyed by the corporate structure that purchased all the seed companies decades ago when they took over. 

This book is a must-read by all Americans.  We must all bond together and institute change.

There also is a movie that came out on June 12th called "Food, Inc"

http://www.apple.com/trailers/magnolia/foodinc/

that talks about how big corporations are controlling what food we eat.  I personally believe that the rising heart disease and obesity levels come from the way food is "processed" today.  How else can you explain that in less than a generation the explosion of heart disease, obesity and diabetes.   Most foods are all injected with a myraid of chemicals to tenderize and flavor the food (i.e. chicken, pork, beef). 

The food of today is nothing like grandma and grandpa raised and ate.  The only reason I know any of this is I raise my own swine and chickens and the old farmers talk about how things used to be.  Now they hate how the food tastes from the stores.