THE First Week of May- Health & Resource Week

Every important event in America has a week. “The First Week of May” should be recognized. This is the week that massive acres of farmland Nationwide are denuded and over-fertilized to plant corn. The corn is used primarily to feed animals in Confinement Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), but also to produce high fructose corn syrup. CAFO animal products and Food like products made from corn commonly called process food dominate our supermarkets and our diets. Industrial food production, which started after World War II, has been an environmental and health disaster. Iowa for example has lost half of it’s topsoil and half of it’s soil organic matter its two most important natural resources***. We are applying almost 3 times more fertilizer than corn can use in a normal rainfall year and it uses less in a drought year. This along with massive amounts of manure produced by CAFOs are the primary cause of the nutrient contamination of all rivers and estuaries East of the Rockies including the Gulf of Mexico, Pamlico Sound and Chesapeake Bay.

Those in the Academic Community who still support the Industrial food production system (an increasing number do not) claim that it is the only way to feed a growing population. One of Webster’s three definitions of food is: something that nourishes or sustains. More than 60 years of Industrial food production has demonstrated that Industrial produced food does not meet this definition. The animal food produced in CAFOs is up to 7 times higher in fat content than that produced by animals on pasture. The result is that we have an epidemic of major diseases including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and stroke connected to over consumption of beef, pork, lamb, processed meat and dairy*.  Sugar, corn oil fat, and other corn based products used in processed food are combined with salt in just the right proportion to addict consumers to these high carbohydrate junk food products which dominate supermarket shelves another major contributor to the American health disaster**.

Does it make any sense to destroy our two most important natural resources to produce meat and sugar most of which is destroying our health?

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) said two things that apply here:

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival of life on earth more than transition to a vegetarian diet.”

And to those trying to restore Chesapeake Bay:

“The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different result” This is what we do Nationwide in “The First Week of May”

 

References archived on this site

* The World Cancer Study and Harvard’s Nurses Health Study

**  The End of Overeating by David Kessler

***   A New Vision for Iowa Agriculture by Iowa Farmer Francis Thicke