International Agricultural Transparency – cultivating consciousness (IAT-CC)

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People care more about where our food comes from, its quality and how it is raised however, learning about methods of animal agriculture and meat quality is especially puzzling because it is so secretive. Even the quality of plant cultivation is difficult to define.

Vegetarians are often very sensitive to animal agriculture issues.   Their motivations range from simply improving their health with cleaner vegetable diets, to animal rights advocacy and protesting inhumane practices of agribusiness’.

How much has the rejection of factory-style animal treatment motivated concerns about low quality foods?  Is it primarily an ethical choice or a health oriented choice, or combination? Nearly all veterinarians will not change their diets form meat na dte plethora of foods available ut seek higher quality grubb.

How do average consumers, who are conscientious about food quality manage high-quality, ecosystem friendly products into their diets?  Also, food quality is difficult to discern in labeling and value.

Our right to satisfy, relax, eat well and enjoy life is overshadowed with the the reduced nutrients in mass-grown cultivation and tainted meats from untoward industrial animal operations. It betrays even health-intended diets when food is affordable and abundance but deteriorated in quality.  Veterinarians, farmers market crowds, naturopaths, physian and a plethora of health-seekers will make it their business to select, respect and choose to seek-out better uses of their time that grab a quick meal. 

The connection of our food quality and dietary  habits, which leads to illness from foods we believe are healthy, are masked from public knowledge.  This masking is purposeful and facilitated; at the minimum we must acknowledge that commercial enterprise has its own, legitimate objectives, and that we must be our own best advocates.

  

Example: Several “standard”, or “conventional” vegetables rated                                         for nutritional yield

 

Even the well-intended diets for children and families grossly overestimates the value of industrial, conventionally grown food.  Agribusiness and many associated commercial sectors may be defined as orchestrating a hoax – delivery of food-like mass, deceiving in nutritional value, for maximum shareholder benefit.

International Agricultural Transparency stands as a news and information bureau to address curiosities about food and attempts to tackle questions about plant foods and massive animal agriculture industries, their low-quality practices and inhumane nature.  These industrial methods perfectly exemplify human separation from nature while well-tended produce and meats, e.g, natural food products, are what we most prefer.   Those with indulgent lifestyles are generally not aware of the depth of the flaw in their foods – this information is easily referenced, as we will demonstrate.   One only needs a desire to inquire.

Debates on basic human rights and values acknowledge that wasteful systems persist alongside of starvation struggles. Nonetheless, our society accepts tainted food amidst many luxuries.  Poor insight to health-related disease and food quality is well explained, with its implications, and many excellent organizations, institutions and references are available for your education.  Become a seeker – learn the meanings of the words: “natural, organic, free-range, grass-fed, artificial color, additives, proprietary formula”, etc.

Awareness of our intimate relationships in life are key.  They include that which is outside the body, as being as important as that within. The importance of relations between humans and their the environment are increasingly vague; inter-relations between the land, water, atmosphere, microbes, animals, and naturally food, are intuitive however, these normally conscious agendas are diverted by overarching powers which serve very few.  Low vitamin (including minerals, trace elements and major label categroies such as fat, sugar/carbohydrate, protein, oil, etc.) in mass cultivation products are coupled with pesticide/antibiotic/hormone and toxin contaminated produce and meat raised in high stress and often cruel settings

Common questions asked in nutritional consults, medical consults and bythe general public: If meat manufacturing is as inhumane, stressful for animals, involves questionable drugs or even cruel?  Is there any truth to the old addage, “you are what you eat?”  Is there more  expensive and complex  support to increase meat-based diets over vegetable-based diets for global human consumption? How do you feel about shooting an animal?   Is industrial agriculture more humane than hunting wild meat? How do consumers relate the life of an industrial meat product, sold in cellophane, in a grocery, to the whole life and ecosystem ofa wild animal’s life? Are some animals lives more valuable, valid or significant than others? How to make this distinction? Does the medical and pharmaceutical industry (modern health advocacy?) seek to cultivate more conscience food industries or are business practices over-riding the practical sense of humanity to guard and nourish people?  The public is apparently excluded from farming processes in several ways because even rich, educated and well-developed societies settle for low standards in food quality and excessive waste.  Dietary education and cause-and-effect of low-quality food to disease, is a primary emphasis we hope to represent at IAT-CC. Generally, our present state is one of choosing low-quality, cheap and addictive, tasty, rich and processed foods.   These choices are not examples of “thriving”, as we perceive them; there is much inequity between our values, capabilities, technology and the reality of our convenient diets.  Do developing middle-class economies promote increased meat consumption? How are re animal-based diets responsible for the majority of internal medical problems, cancers, heart disease?  Their dietary effects are observed globally but how should meat in the diet with positive results and limits defined. i.e., excessive use or indulgent excess. Does the medical and pharmaceutical industrial complex support increasing meat-based diets over vegetable-based diets, for global human consumption? How do you feel about shooting an animal?   Is industrial agriculture more humane than hunting wild meat? How do consumers relate the life of an industrial meat product, sold in cellophane, in a grocery, to the life and conditions of the animal they buy a part of? Is meat slaughtered humanely, raised inhumane, stressful for animals, involve unautorized/unregulated?  Is there any truth to the old addage, “you are what you eat?”

 We generally live as foreigners to the Utopian principles of our potential and present technology.  Striving for concepts or ideals is rarely the reality, as we imagine it, but is even foreign for us to consider; industrial values insist upon collection/hoarding in excess while inequities and insecurity are the default states of mankind, when ignoring human potential.  Shall we redirect toward human likenesses, collaboration and harmonious relationships with nature?  There is an abundance of models and examples for this through the following priorities:

• Support organic food industries and eco-friendly stewardship
• Use locally grown, in-season foods that support community and harbor natural microbial flora (non-sterilized)
• Use minimally processed foods
• Foster international development of sustainable, traditional farms
• Low-impact (environment/ecosystem) are the most sustainable long term agricultural systems

Are important, arable lands in developing countries being used to support animal agriculture for the rich and growing middle classes in other countries? Are the poor dependent upon lands overtaken by global agribusinesses, or are they subsisting on the sidelines, – separated from the major food security of their lands and ancestral lands.  Carbon sequestration and water conservation a function of proper animal agriculture & land use TED       ——>——->——->     Watch the short presentation http://www.carbonnationmovie.com/clips

    Narrative

The surge of interest in organic food shows wise exploration of food quality by aware and inquisitive individuals.  Organic products are often less whole, pure and healthful as the branding suggests.   Inquiries are considered harmful probing by large agribusinesses as the “trade secrets” of these industries are protected; ordinary facts about how food is raised is denied to the public.  That we must probe for knowledge about our own food, suggests a fundamental betrayal.  Masking the composition, configuration and mechanics of constructing our food supply and our unwitting enrollment in its undesirable essences is dishonest.  The concepts separating the environment from humans and humans from food are not only deceitful but potentially treacherous for our health, our society and global stability. The threats extend beyond misinformation and the concealment of harmful food marketing to realms afar such as enhanced infectious disease risks.

Infections threats are not only under-appreciated but largely unknown. They are rapidly evolving and destabilized by climate shifts, ecosystem change and human activity combined.   Nothing less than a popular, socially connected and networked educational momentum can curb institutionalized non-disclosure practices (see ZOONOSIS).
 

Emphasis on healthful products are outweighed by industrial marketing, promotions and convenience of low-quality foods.   As a matter of values, aligning societies with informed health education requires the exposure of commercial practices; large dietary health campaigns and facilitation by public/private partnerships will only evolve through the purchasing power of an educated society.

Is food served in children’s public schools nutritious?  Hardly nutritious, most school lunches lead to diabetes, cancer and establish poor awareness and eating habits among children.  Parents are the principle dietary instructors – if public school teaches children about diet – dietary modification will evolve at a very slow pace.  Future generations will continue with diabetes, vascular diseases, stroke, cancer, arthritis, dementia, depression and many other food attributed disease states.  Mood-swings, incompatibility with other classmates, irregular stools, inconsistent grades, insomnia, precocious puberty, tiredness, disinterest in social activities, skin irregularities

skin anomalies, etc. may proved to be good leads that one or more foods are unsetting your kids balance,i.e., equilibrium

The truism of, it is much cheaper to keep well than to become ill has come to the fore, even in the health of children. Obesity, irritability, excessive allergic conditions, ADHD, etc. are now commonplace childhood health issues.   Most notably about a child’s health in relation to scholastic succes are the poor concentration, irritability, poor socialization, apathy, violent outbursts, etc.

That unsavory industrial meat-product processes are  used to build young bodies and eating habits are becoming global standards; this should attract out attention; it  raises many ethical questions.  How are the occult underpinnings of dietary intake presenting? Without determined and resourceful powers, gluten, processed grains,cows milk, food coloring,sugar, carraggeenan, soy, etc, may have leading edges of simulteanous inquiry. Help is needed

Alongside of biosecurity considerations, food security and whole societies stand to become at higher risk as the animal agribusiness saturates and dominates the priorities (profit) of food marketing.  Paradoxically, dietary disease (internal medical diseases) continue to spread & infectious disease evolution is enhanced among people and animals more readily through factory farming, than malnutrition disease is abated.  Policy changes are a worthy objective but, as an example, we repeatedly observe matters such as Monsanto protection and associated industrial lobbies overpower the common good.
Again, infectious disease even challenge global stability with respect to many local, national and international threats, unconstrained by borders or social class.   Add agro-terrorism to mounting tensions during climatic shifts, natural disaster and power struggles between many public/private interests and the risks of a food-production race are further proliferated (See ZOONOSIS).Popularization of sound cultivation, animal husbandry and equitable food distribution is still not a popular debate, inquiry or target of mass behavior modification (choice-making) and public health programming.  Education, organization and social momentum are the only powers which may balance commercial motivations and their political influences.   So that agri-businesses remain lucrative however, deceptive nutrition values are well-integrated among our populations.

While the poor are fragmented into even less food-secure situations, infectious threats and the obvious disease states associated with poor diets (including dental, maternal, zoonosis and numerous internal medical conditions) show great promise to evolve into complex negative outcomes.

— The wonders of the animal agriculture industry, multi-disciplinary in-put, public/private partnerships, nutrition, evolving disease, civil society mobility and polularization are intertwined with medical/pharmaceutical and other commercial syndicate interests. Political, lobby, sectors and research motivations and support engines are also are pondered (See INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE).

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Below are offered examples of questions about how our food is raised and priorities in food production.   Some are true inquiries while others are intuitive preponderances about these wonders which are growing in popularity.   

• From the excesses of industrial meat manufacturing and its success and public ignorance of its internal mechanics, it is apparent that most people really do not want to know how livestock and poultry are raised, or what many of their industrial products and packaged food consists of  (rich countries prioritize lower price over product quality and set this precedent for the developing middle classes of countries like Malaysia, India, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Saudis and others.   Their populations are urged to eat more mass produce, processed foods and especially meats, by powerful marketeers)?

• Is the American agricultural model really what we want for our families, our succeeding generations? Americans suspect our food is tainted – with our acceptance of lower cost as the driver of industrial methods, are we setting a bad precedent for our future and the countries we assist in development?  Is the disappearance of carefully tended family farms, and the practice of wholesome farming principles truly acceptable to Americans or do we prefer short-sighted low-cost and plenty (a public education condition primarily but also a value statement; civilization theology and religion has not kept pace with human mastery of our ecosphere, our inseparable inclusion in it and the tendency for nature to find equilibrium)?

• Is our American factory farming industrial model of production the methodology we should continue to export to help feed to world (biomedical institutions, big pharma and every other large commercial or investment syndicate are aware of wrought outcomes to our methods)?  At what point does curbing starvation give way to sustainability and the value of a sound ecology?

99% of US government farm subsidies go to mega agrobusiness’ raising meat and meat industry support produce, such as corn.
Use of US grown corn:

 

5,525 million bu. – Livestock feed (42%)                                                                                                                                  4

 

,500 million bu. – Ethanol production (34%)                                                                                                                        

 

1,950 million bu. – Exports (14%)                                                                                                                                              

 

1,340 million bu. – Human Consumption (10% [Production of starch, corn oil, sweeteners (HFCS, etc.),                                                  grits, corn flour, corn meal, beverage alcohol])

 

  

 

    

  Some beginning wonders of animal agriculture industry:Do we use a disproportionate amount of grain to feed animals than humans who are starving?  How disproportunate?

• Are the poor human working conditions and animal stress conditions in these factories likely to be worse in factories in developing countries? 
• Is it true factory farms in developing countries are building momentum to export food out of their country where people are starving, to the rich and growing middle classes? 
• Do high-end, expensive restaurants serve factory farmed food?   Do many fine-food purveyors serve the low quality food because patrons are ignorant or find food quality conscientiousness inconvenient (or even distasteful – what irony).  
• Are the hormones, antibiotics, feeds and stressful conditions livestock and poultry raised with really harmful for humans? 
• Is the confinement, lack of sun, wire or cement flooring and unnatural “factory”, over-crowded setting really cruel and immoral? 
• Is meat raised by industrial methods inhumane or cause actual agony as claimed by the animal advocates ASPCA, PETA and others?

  Wonders about intensified, non-organic fruits and vegetables cultivation, to           state only a few:

• Does wax used to preserve and shine apples, cucumbers and peppers seal-in pesticides?
• Does non-organic celery actually absorb pesticide into its tissue?
• Does the intensified farming of corn,wheat and soy add to American obesity problems?
• Does the 1% of farming subsidy for vegetables discourage vegetal agribusiness from
• Does the diversion from high-vegetable diets lead to an absence of some essential minerals and vitamins, especially in children?

Huge American farming operations have undermined “normal” quality in general.   People must seek-out organic foods, and hope they are genuine, to eat “naturally”, e.g., taste and nourish from food as good as it occurs in nature. 
Urban values of fast food are sweeping the globe while urbanization continues as a global trend; this fertile ground for expansion of untoward agribusiness, is occurring at a monumentally expansive pace.   The funding in this expansion is intimidating to consider as a force of driving future trends, advertizing and commercialization of low-quality diets.

The concept of food security for the global masses and consistently cheap food for privileged, or rich populations is relative.  Although food may be produced in greater bulk, the populations which will suffer food insecurity are more likely the poor.  

 

 

Preliminary – Impact statements:

• Be a rebel, do not accept industrially marketed food – rebel the manipulation of powerful industrial forces.  Buy good food from good farmers, e.g., people with shared values
• Respect what you put in your mouth – Large corps want more salt, sweet and meaty food addictions – all profit oriented pursuits with little regard for health.  
• Advertisement: Beef – “Real food for real people”? People who consider real medication for real health problems to be natural human state.         
• Kill animals honestly, humanely and consider harvesting them (hunting) from the wild is a far better life and death than a factory raised life-cycle.  Even vegetarians respect that animals eat each other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

International Agricultural Transparency – cultivating conscience
269 69th Street, Suite #3, Miami Florida  33180
TEL: 786-309-7360, EMAIL: gershon@agriculturaltransparency.org
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IAT-CC Local Food Education Program

Healthy Cub – Healthy Bear

 

http://www.greatschools.org/improvement/slideshows/3852-How-to-improve-your-schools-lunch-program.gs

• Step-wise plan for schools.
• Budgetary challenges
• Education about the program for parents and each grade of children from 1^st through High School.