Organic Manifesto

The fitness industry is all infested with calls to proper nutrition. Eat real food. This month's diet is next month's body.Abs are made in the kitchen.Stop eating garbage. Eat less sugar, you are already sweet enough. The longer its shelf life, the shorter yours. Food: what organic food was called last century. You wouldn't garbage in your gas tank, why put it in your stomach? Eat clean, train mean. Whoever snuck the s in "fast food" is a clever person. Perhaps no other family has led this charge like the Rodale family. While most people will know that name Rodale as the umbrella head associated with Men's Health and Prevention magazines. But, in 1942 J.I. Rodale started Organic Gardening and Farming. Since then the Rodale Inc, and Institute, has been charged with educating about the benefits and necessities of rganics. Not only to our bodies, but also to the planet. J.I.'s granddaughter Maria Rodale put the family mission in a short book entitled, Organic Manifesto.

Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, provides an excellent foreword letting us now what we are dealing with. The first 3 words. "Pesticides are poison." There is so much hidden in these first three words. What's going on? Our food supply is being poisoned, killing us. Who is doing it? We are, by electing to eat food with pesticides. He also provides a small preview of what Rodale will tell us alter. Organophosphates and other pesticides, originally used as chemical weapons, like those used in Nazi Germany and during the Vietnam Conflict.

Right away Rodlae points it out! "Organic agriculture is the key to our survival." The challenge is to get away from conventional farming. Bellieve it or not conventional (meaning the norm) is manipulated seeds and sprayed with pesticides. Organic farming is not only more productive but has been shown to help problems caused by drought, flood, and other functions of the climate crisis. The challenge toward organics would also improve our financial crisis. Even problems such as childhood asthma (the number one reason children miss school) could go into remission if not for the problems associated with conventional or chemical farming. As a result of chemical farming, the soil is deprived, thus requiring more than the exhausted soil can provide, having lived on chemicals for so long! The chemicals starve the soil, the consequently the water of oxygen. So this poison spreads to our drinking water, rivers and streams (affecting our seafood.) Without healthy water, we cannot have a healthy life. In our society, we would rather pay for cures than change behaviors. We would rather pay for doctor bills and triple bypass and gastric surgeries instead of the far cheaper diet and exercise. We are somehow under the illusion that synthesized and technology is the only way to feed the world. We ignore the fact, that like asthma, these chemicals are also to blame for problems such as ADHD and cancer. Whats worse too, is that we no longer test pesticide levels  because regulation was deemed too expensive by President Bush. We allow them to self regulate... which worked out so well for the banks. Since money rules the world, only flattering studies ever see the light of day. As a result nearly all of soybeans, corn, and cotton in the U.S. are Genetically Modified Organisms- a barely recognizeable replica of the original crop. The problem is not what extras (think 'enriched') are in the food, but the problem arises when considering what poisons are put into them! "The more we try to isolate ourselves and control nature, the weaker and more vulnerable we become."

Farmers are being educated, by the biased seed andpesticide companies, and encouraged to use E COli and Salmonella in farming techniques. Then to add antibiotics to somewhat kill the effects of these bacteria. Aside from the dangers to us, these poisons kill the fertility in the soil. Farmers do not believe that they could produce the same crop in organics. This is because it takes 3 years to cycle all the diseased soil out. The truth is, it would actually cost less. There would be more nutrients in the food. The chemical movement is not new. It is believed that the Chinese used it as early as 900 BC, but it really took off around 1700s England. From the cyanide-based poison used in NAZI Germany to Agent Orange, poisons were simultaneously sold to U.S. citizens with a patriotic stint to increase sales! One hundred years ago, nearly half of Americans lived the farm life, today that number is less than 1 percent. How do we change this ugly pattern? Rodale maintains that the biggest challenge is a unified voice. While organic and eating clean is seen as an elitist or high scoiety lifestyle, its really something we need at all levels. Companies like Dupont and Monsanto need to be held accountable for thier actions. Guilty of poisoning our minds and bodies. Feeding ourselves needs to be kept out of politics, but unfortunately political power controls the contracts so to get rid of the politics we must lobby for change. We must stop thinking that burgers (made from real meat) cost less than $1. We must stop purchasing things on the grocery shelves resembling more like scientific projects than actual food.