Save our food supply from goverment pollution and contamination with flouride

Stopping Companies from Defrauding Consumers with Bogus 'Grass-Fed' Labels

go to www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main

* Protecting the truth about grass-fed meats
By Michael Dimock
San Francisco Chronicle - CA, Sunday, August 13, 2006
Straight to the Source

What does the term grass-fed mean to you? To millions of consumers it means pasture-raised, unconfined animals. Now, a few greedy companies have lined up lobbyists to change the meaning -- and, with it, the truth -- in grass-fed labeling. Back in the 1990s, after years of pressure from the emerging organic-food industry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture finally offered a proposed definition of the term organic. Unfortunately, industrial-scale food producers saw the potential in a market that they didn't have a piece of, and hijacked the proposed rule before it reached the public. Fortunately for us, the leadership of the organic industry rallied its legion of consumers to wage a pitched battle in the form of letters, e-mail and telephone calls. And won. The USDA received more comments on a proposed rule than ever before or since. The intended meaning of organic survived.

We face a similar hijacking again -- but this time the term is "grass fed," and the food is meat, milk and cheese. Factory-system food producers, who seek to profit from the burgeoning market for grass-fed protein, are attempting to steal the meaning and therefore the market.

True grass-fed production means that the animals are free to roam pastures and therefore free of the antibiotics and hormones necessary to artificially fatten animals in unsanitary and unnaturally crowded conditions. When properly managed by proactive ranchers and farmers, free-range grassland practices are demonstrably sustainable because they mimic the natural systems that plants and hoofed species co-evolved over millions of years. Grass-fed meats are gaining market share because sound research indicates that the meat is higher in beta carotene (vitamin A), conjugated linoleic acid, and Omega-3 fatty acids, which are important in reducing cholesterol, diabetes, cancer and high-blood pressure. Grass-fed meat is also lower in fat, cholesterol and calories than meat generated by animals gorging at the end of life on corn. The USDA has proposed a rule that now would allow "grass fed" to include animal confinement and the feeding of corn and other grains in the final stages of an animal's life. These degradations of a common sense and widely understood meaning of the term are the result of industrial producers seeking to co-opt a wholesome system that thousands of small producers are using to successfully compete with industrial-meat factories. This attempt is clearly unprincipled and unethical.

The hope of thousands of quality-oriented ranchers, farmers, dairymen, cheesemakers and consumers is that the USDA will stop kowtowing to the few industrial producers and allow a high-quality approach, which could serve the many, to fully emerge and prosper. The grass-fed system is a healthy, market-driven dynamic in which consumers, who care deeply about healthy food and healthy animals, can buy what they want, even if they must pay a bit more for it. To allow a distortion that amounts to false advertising would violate the purpose of the USDA and the principle that government should protect the people.

Despite the closing of the USDA's public comment period on Aug. 10, please join thousands of others and continue to write USDA and your representatives in Congress telling them to protect the truth in the "grass-fed" rule. It must be clear and honest, meaning animals that are free to roam on open pasture, eating grass from birth to harvest.

Michael Dimock is the executive director of the Roots of Change Fund and chairman emeritus of Slow Food USA. The Roots of Change Fund is a foundation collaborative with the mission of creating a sustainable food system in California by the year 2030. To comment, go to www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main

Protecting Our Food from Fluoride Pesticides:
The Campaign Against Sulfuryl Fluoride

THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST SULFURYL FLUORIDE

NEW: NYS Attorney General supports revocation of food tolerances for sulfuryl fluoride!

Background:

Sulfuryl fluoride is a gas fumigant that has been used -- since the 1950s -- to kill bugs and rodents in indoor structures, such as homes, warehouses, and railroad cars.

Up until recently, federal guidelines prohibited food-related uses of sulfuryl fluoride. This prohibition, however, has recently been rescinded -- due to an intensive lobbying effort from DOW AgroSciences.

In DOW's quest to find an alternative to the fumigant methyl bromide (an ozone-depleting chemical that DOW also produces), the pesticide manufacturer worked hard to get EPA's approval of sulfuryl fluoride as a "post-harvest fumigant". Post-harvest fumigants are chemcials used to fumigate food-processing, and food storage, facilities.

In 2004, EPA gave Dow what they wanted: the approval to use sulfuryl fluoride on food.

As a result, hundreds of food processing companies across the US have begun fumigating their facilities with sulfuryl fluoride (trade name = ProFume ®).

Since companies are not required to remove food from the premises before fumigating, fumigations with sulfuryl fluoride produce high levels of fluoride residues "in or on" the stored foods. According to recent regulations approved by EPA, it is now acceptable for fumigations to produce fluoride residues of 70 ppm "in or on" all processed foods (except for the processed foods otherwise specified), 130 ppm "in or on" wheat, and 900 ppm "in or on" dried eggs. (See full list of foods that can be fumigated)

The end result, according to estimates released by EPA in January 2006, is that the use of sulfuryl fluoride as a food fumigant could become the second largest daily source of fluoride exposure in the US.

Morever, because there are no labeling requirements for foods fumigated with sulfuryl fluoride, the use of sulfuryl fluoride will make it more difficult for health-conscious people to limit, or monitor, their fluoride intake. This is because all processed foods (from cookies to cakes to frozen meals, etc.) are now allowed to have high fluoride residues. Not every batch of processed food will be fumigated. In fact, most will not be. However, it’s similar to Russian-roulette: there is now no way to know if the processed food you're about to eat has high fluoride levels.

Current Status:

In two recent rulings (January 2004 & July 2005), EPA granted DOW the green light to begin fumigating food with sulfuryl fluoride. Thus, food processors in the US are beginning to adopt sulfuryl fluoride as their food fumigant of choice. That's the bad news.

The good news is that EPA's "gift to DOW" is being rigorously challenged by three environmental groups: Fluoride Action Network, Environmental Working Group, and Beyond Pesticides. In June of 2006, the three groups filed a petition to EPA calling for a "stay", or immediate suspension, of all food-uses of sulfuryl fluoride pending a full evidentiary hearing. The environmental groups’ are represented by attorney Perry Wallace, of the international law firm, Zelle, Hofmann, Voebel, Mason and Gette.

After receiving the groups' petition, the EPA issued a request for public comment noting that "the request for a stay raises complex science issues of great public interest."

In response to EPA's request, the New York State Attorney General's Office, the Union representing EPA's scientists and professionals in Washington DC, and over 7,000 citizens wrote to EPA expressing their support for the petition and urging the Agency to terminate the food uses of sulfuryl fluoride.

With the comment period now over (as of August 4, 2006), the public now awaits EPA's next move. Will the Agency bow to industry pressure, or will it fulfill its mandate and protect the public's health?