Free Republic

J.I. Rodale, the godfather of the locavore trend, was a paranoid anti-vaxxer, tooOn June 7, 1971, Jerome Irving Rodale appeared on "The Dick Cavett Show." The elder statesman of a growing organic food trend, he gushed about the health benefits of his diet, boasting that he “never felt better” and that he “decided to live to a hundred.” But after a commercial break, as Cavett interviewed his second guest, what sounded like a loud snore rose from Rodale’s end of the couch. The audience twittered, thinking that he was pulling a prank. But Cavett knew. When he looked over at...

Maggots found in Whole Foods meat case, health officials say they’re not moving fast enough to fix the problem Whole Foods claims to be “America’s Healthiest Grocery Store,” and that they, “maintain the strictest quality standards in the industry.” Such claims might start to be questioned, however, after a disgusting discovery at one of their San Francisco locations on Monday, April 21. Last week, KRON 4 News exclusively reported that maggots were found in a meat case. Now, KRON 4 News is reporting that the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) claims Whole Foods hasn’t worked quickly enough to...

Americans get riled up about creationists and climate change deniers, but lap up the quasi-religious snake oil at Whole Foods. It’s all pseudoscience—so why are some kinds of pseudoscience more equal than others? If you want to write about spiritually-motivated pseudoscience in America, you head to the Creation Museum in Kentucky. It’s like a Law of Journalism. The museum has inspired hundreds of book chapters and articles (some of them, admittedly, mine) since it opened up in 2007. The place is like media magnet. And our nation’s liberal, coastal journalists are so many piles of iron fillings. But you don’t...

im Crawford was rushing to load crates of freshly picked organic tomatoes onto trucks heading for an urban farmers market when he noticed the federal agent. A tense conversation followed as the visitor to his farm — an inspector from the Food and Drug Administration — warned him that some organic-growing techniques he had honed over four decades could soon be outlawed. "This is my badge. These are the fines. This is what is hanging over your head, and we want you to know that," Crawford says the official told him. Crawford's popular farm may seem a curious place for...

Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog, If the extreme drought in the western half of the country keeps going, the food supply problems that we are experiencing right now are only going to be the tip of the iceberg. As you will see below, the size of the U.S. cattle herd has dropped to a 61 year low, and organic food shortages are being reported all over the nation. Surprisingly cold weather and increasing demand for organic food have both been a factor, but the biggest threat to the U.S. food supply is the extraordinary drought which...

Late last year, in a small health-food eatery called Cafe Sprouts in Oberlin, Ohio, I had what may well have been the most wholesome beverage of my life. The friendly server guided me to an apple-blueberry-kale-carrot smoothie-juice combination, which she spent the next several minutes preparing, mostly by shepherding farm-fresh produce into machinery. The result was tasty. But at 300 calories (by my rough calculation) for a 16-ounce cup, it was more than my diet could regularly absorb without consequences. Nor was I about to make a habit of $9 shakes, healthy or not. Inspired by the experience nonetheless, I...

1 minute ago Obama’s certified organic night out Posted by CNN Political Unit Washington (CNN) - President Barack Obama went out to dinner Friday night with first lady Michelle Obama and senior aide Valerie Jarrett for a birthday dinner for Jarrett at a certified organic restaurant. The trio dined at Restaurant Nora in Washington’s Dupont Circle neighborhood. “The menu changes daily, offering a la carte items and a four-course chef’s tasting menu,” the restaurant’s website says. “The wine list presents over 100 exceptional wines from small producers, many of them using organically grown grapes and sustainable practices.” Founded in 1979,...

In an essay "Freedom of the Press" George Orwell wrote presciently about the dangers of a press too bound to prevailing orthodoxy to print anything else: "Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news -- things which on their own merits would get the big headlines -- being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that "it wouldn't do" to mention...

Justine and Brian Denison sat they adhere to all the growing practices required for organic certification, yet if they label their beans and tomatoes "organic" at the farmer's market, they could face federal charges and $20,000 or more in fines.

Monsanto Co. on Monday won another round in a legal battle with U.S. organic growers as an appeals court threw out the growers' efforts to stop the company from suing farmers if traces of its patented biotech genes are found in crops. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a previous ruling that found organic growers had no reason to try to block Monsanto from suing them as the company had pledged it would not take them to court if biotech crops accidentally mix in with organics. Organic farmers and others have worried for years that they...

Food companies big and small are struggling to replace genetically modified ingredients with conventional ones. Pressure is growing to label products made from genetically modified organisms, or “G.M.O.” In Connecticut, Vermont and Maine, at least one chamber of the state legislature has approved bills that would require the labeling of foods that contain genetically modified ingredients, and similar legislation is pending in more than two dozen other states. This weekend, rallies were held around the globe against producers of genetically altered ingredients, and consumers are threatening to boycott products that are not labeled. And so, for many businesses, the pressing...

I have a new hero: Eden Foods founder and CEO Michael Potter. Eden Foods is an organic company popular among the “crunchy, liberal crowd” which has filed suit against the Obama administration over the HHS mandate. Potter is getting slammed over it, thanks in part to a hit piece last week in Salon magazine which publicized the suit and framed Potter as a man with an anti-birth control agenda. Don’t waste your time on the original article. Instead, enjoy the refreshing quotes from the no nonsense, plain-speaking Mr. Potter in Salon’s follow-up piece from Monday relating a telephone conversation between...

“There’s so much malevolence in your approach to this, I really don’t see a lot of value in talking to you, Irin,” said Michael Potter, the CEO of Eden Foods, back on the phone on Wednesday. Over the last week, I’d reported that his organic food company (marketed to the crunchy, liberal set) was suing to avoid having to cover contraception in employee health plans — as well as his subsequent phone call to me in which he doubled down by saying he didn’t actually care about birth control, because he’s a man, but is suing because “Obama’s in your...

Genetic engineering in agriculture has disappointed many people who once had hopes for it. Excluding, of course, those who’ve made money from it, appropriately represented in the public’s mind by Monsanto. That corporation, or at least its friends, recently managed to have an outrageous rider slipped into the 587-page funding bill Congress sent to President Obama.[1] The rider essentially prohibits the Department of Agriculture from stopping production of any genetically engineered crop once it’s in the ground, even if there is evidence that it is harmful.

Organic products make people feel more secure about their own morality, which weakens the desire to act altruistically, the US findings suggest. The effect also makes people judge immoral behavior more harshly, psychologists report in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. But comfort foods such as chocolate can lead to us being more social and making "kinder moral judgments".

I’m not sure which is my favorite part — probably where the young woman explained that “food is free, all you have to do is pay the farmers” — but I think the “vegetable trees” was the best. Actually, I think the most edifying part was watching the Santa Cruz, California city council sit impassively to the very end, or maybe the strangled applause just before they asked for the next speaker.

Consider it a modern take on the legendary tale of Johnny Appleseed. Vancouver, B.C., has announced plans to plant 150,000 fruit and nut trees on city streets, in parks, and on city-owned lands in the next eight years, reports the Vancouver Sun. At the moment, the city has about 600 fruit and nut trees on city streets, and another 425 can be found in the city's parks, community gardens, and pocket orchards. "Street trees play an important role in helping Vancouver adapt to climate change, manage stormwater run-off, support biodiversity, and even provide food," Mayor Gregor Robertson said in a...

for dinner. Last week, researchers from Stanford University published the results of the most comprehensive study to date on organic and conventional foods. Their conclusion? Organic foods have no more vitamins and nutrients than traditionally grown produce. I can’t say I’m surprised. Chicken is chicken, with the same nutritional content, whether it is organic, free range or mass-produced. But now scientists have confirmed it, perhaps we can begin to have a proper conversation about the food we put on our table. The Stanford University team reviewed more than 200 studies which compared either the health of those who ate organic...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Organic produce and meat typically isn't any better for you than conventional varieties when it comes to vitamin and nutrient content, according to a new review of the evidence. But organic options may live up to their billing of lowering exposure to pesticide residue and antibiotic-resistant bacteria, researchers from Stanford University and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System found. "People choose to buy organic foods for many different reasons. One of them is perceived health benefits," said Dr. Crystal Smith-Spangler, who led the new study. "Our patients, our families ask about, ‘Well, are...

Ever get the sneaking suspicion that corporations -- or hell, even the mango vendor at the local farmers' market -- are conspiring to use your fear of ingesting chemicals to get you to spend more money on food? Those who worry that they're being misled about the veracity of certain "organic" claims will soon have a pricy tool to protect themselves; at least in theory. Lapka has created a personal environmental monitor via a sleek iPhone accessory and app that claims to be able to test for radiation, electromagnetic fields, humidity, and organicity by way of four separate plug-ins. The...