What's in your milk? Hundreds of dairies have been breaking laws designed to keep antibiotics and other drugs out of our food supply. Indianapolis- WTHR, Indiana.  http://www.wthr.com/story/14656493/whats-in-your-milk

The real price of Cheap Food

Food Med 2007  Downloads  Changing our Cheap Food Mentality Hugh Joseph, PhD Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University Food Med 2005 Downloads   Time Magazine:  Getting Real about the Cheap Price of Food http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1917458,00.html. FoodMed 2009 Downloads
		What is a CAFO? Cheap Meat and Poultry Public Health Issues with Industrialized Beef, Hog and Poultry Production Doug Gurian-Sherman, Union for Concerned Scientists Monday, March 8, 2010 at 11:00 AM EST http://www.onpointradio.org/2010/03/protecting-the-global-food-chain Protecting the Global Food Chain A quarter of the calories that feed the planet come from wheat. It’s going to take a lot more wheat to feed the world as its population moves toward 9 billion. But keeping that vast hunger fed is a constant race against pathogens that can wipe out a harvest, climate change that can strangle a crop. It takes non-stop breeding and new hybrids. Breeding that can depend on some very old and out-of-the-way strains. On seeds you’d never think of. In the most exotic locations. Seeds that keep your family fed. This hour, On Point: the staff of life, and the wild story of how bread stays on your table.

We Won: Schools Can Serve rBGH-Free and Organic Milk!

School Milk Campaign Victory! This is a victory for consumers, parents and kids across the country, schools can now source better milk. Help Spread the News

Great news! We just won our campaign to make sure schools can source organic milk or rBGH-Free milk! We've been working over the last year to pressure Congress and the USDA to make it clear that schools can purchase better milk for their students. The USDA got the message and has made it clear schools have the choice. Help us spread the word so all schools know they can serve better milk!

Thanks to folks like you who contacted your members of Congress, participated in our School Milk Days of Action, and contacted your local schools, our nation's schools will not become the dumping ground for milk produced with artificial growth hormones. Here are a few highlights from our School Milk Campaign:

- Over 30,000 petition signatures were delivered to Congress
- School Milk Campaign activists made over 2,000 calls to Congress
- Hundreds of schools across the country were contacted about their milk, directly influencing three schools to go rBGH-Free
-Our Healthy School Milk or Bust road trip hit seven key states, raising visibility of this issue with the media, consumers and congressional staff

Now that it's clear schools can buy organic milk or milk that's produced without artificial hormones, we need to make sure schools know they have this choice.  Can you tell your friends and family the great news, and ask them to spread the word?

We've been working to make sure that schools have the opportunity to purchase organic milk and milk that's free of artificial growth hormones because of the serious health concerns associated with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH).  The artificial hormones are injected into cows to make them produce more milk, which can cause health problems for the cows, and may be linked to cancer in humans. We're proud that schools will now have the clear choice to offer milk that's produced without artificial growth hormones. Please help us spread the word.


Thanks for taking action,
Sarah Alexander, Senior Food Organizer
Food & Water Watch
goodfood(at)fwwatch.org

Organic Bytes #180

July 1, 2009

Organic Bytes #180

Health, Justice and Sustainability News

from the Organic Consumers Association

In This Issue

• Breaking News of the Week: Horizon Sells Out Organic Farmers With New "Natural" Milk
• Alert of the Week: Whole Foods Market Undermining Our Organic Future
• Alert Update of the Week: Stop Big Brother's NAIS
• Political Plunder of the Week: Who is Spending What on Lobbying?
• Sustainability News of the Week: Some Resources for Getting Started with a Backyard Chicken Coop
• Web Video of the Week: Bill McKibben on U.S. Climate Politics
• Other Headlines of the Week

Organic Dairy Family Farmers Need Support

Alert Update of the Week

The OCA has called for a boycott of bogus organic dairy brands such as Horizon and Aurora (suppliers to Wal-Mart, Safeway and other giant chains), who have inundated the market with misleadingly labeled "organic" milk produced on factory farms. Recently, the situation has worsened as organic feed prices have increased and recession-pummeled consumers have cut back on the amount of organic milk they are purchasing. The result is a surplus of organic milk, depressed milk prices, and an increasing number of organic dairy farmers across the U.S. being driven into bankruptcy. Consumers can support ethical organic dairy farmers and preserve organic integrity by boycotting Horizon and Aurora products and instead supporting local organic farmers and dairy cooperatives like Organic Valley and others.

Learn More

Eliminate rBGH milk from school meal programs

As you know, Breast Cancer Action works to eliminate the causes of cancer in our environment. This year, the focus of our Think Before You Pink campaign will be to rid the entire dairy market of rBGH--the cancer-linked artificial growth hormone.

As part of the 2009 Think Before You Pink campaign, we're partnering with Food and Water Watch to eliminate rBGH milk from school meal programs. As consumer demand increases for hormone-free milk, many schools don't have a choice. School kids are drinking milk we refuse to drink ourselves!

Everyone deserves rBGH-free dairy. Keep the pressure on. Sign the Petition to Congress at
http://bcaction.org/index.php?page=school-milk-petition.

Breast Cancer Action
55 New Montgomery St. #323
San Francisco, CA 94105

Toll-free at 877-2STOPBC (278-6722)
www.bcaction.org
www.thinkbeforeyoupink.org

Jamie Harvie, HCWH, NRDC Thought Leader

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 11, 2009
Contact: Jamie Harview, 218-525-7806 harvie@isfusa.org
Eileen Secrest, 866-998-0007 esecrest@hcwh.org

Jamie Harvie, Founding Member of Health Care without Harm, Named 2009 “Thought Leader” by National Resources Defense Council

Honored for Work in Sustainable Food in Healthcare

Jamie Harvie, founding member of Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), and director of the Institute for a Sustainable Future, has been named a “Thought Leader” by the National Resources Defense Fund (NRDC). The honor was bestowed as one of the inaugural NRDC Growing Green Awards. Harvie was honored for his work on sustainable food production and especially for his work in sustainable food in healthcare.

“How we produce and distribute food has a profound impact on ecological health, and by obvious extension, human health,” stated Harvie. “As places of healing, hospitals have a natural incentive to provide food that is healthy for people and the environment in which they live. But they must go further. They must use their purchasing power to move markets, their moral authority to garner support, and their voices to effect a change in procurement policies.”

An independent panel of sustainable food experts selected the award winners from a pool of 140 impressive candidates that included diverse growers, entrepreneurs and business leaders across the country. In a statement announcing the awards, NRDC said, “Harvie has helped catalyze a national campaign to encourage the inclusion of social and environmental awareness in hospital food service.” Harvie is the co-chair of HCWH’s Food Work Group. More than 200 hospitals around the country have signed Health Care Without Harm’s “Healthy Food in Healthcare Pledge,” most recently by the Cleveland Clinic and Boston Medical Center.

Hospitals signing the pledge agree to work to increase the availability of locally-sourced food, encourage vendors to supply pesticide-, hormone- and antibiotic-free foods; implement a step-wise sustainable foods programs; ask Group Purchasing Organizations to supply local, certified foods; educate the community about nutritious, socially just, and ecologically sustainable healthy food practices; minimize food waste; support ecologically sound packaging; and promote and source from producers and processors supplies that uphold the dignity of family, farmers, workers and their communities and that support sustainable and humane agricultural systems. While this seems a large undertaking, many hospitals and health care facilities are making tremendous strides in meeting all of the pledge elements.

“What if around the globe hospitals and clinics became recognized in their communities for providing some of the most affordable, nutritious, tasty, local and sustainably produced food,” said Harvie. “What if these same hospitals and clinics provided clean drinking water and hosted farmers markets and became a community gathering point? Perhaps then we could say we have truly developed a global health care system based in primary prevention.”

Harvie and other Growing Green Award winners were honored at NRDC’s 2009 benefit, “Food for Thought,” an event that also honored Michael Pollan for his contributions to the field of sustainable food. The event took place at San Francisco’s California Academy of Sciences on May 9.

“Health Care Without Harm is very proud to have Jamie working with us,” stated Anna Gilmore Hall, co-executive director of HCWH. “He is an invaluable resource and committed to sustainable food production, one of our fastest growing and most successful initiatives. Jamie also led the organization’s highly successful global effort to eradicate the use of mercury in health care and is an invaluable member of the international sustainable health care community.”

ISF is a not-for-profit organization working to support and improve ecological health, through advocacy, research and education. ISF works to build, support and replicate models of success. Consistent with its ecological approach, ISF engages in campaigns which foster relationships and collaboration. ISF recognizes science and the arts as equally important in building a healthy, sustainable world. www.isfusa.org

HCWH is an international coalition of more than 430 organizations in 52 countries, working to transform the health care industry worldwide, without compromising patient safety or care, so that it is ecologically sustainable and no longer a source of harm to public health and the environment. For more information on the rBGH and the role of healthcare see http://www.noharm.org/us/food/resources#rbgh.

HCWH has an ambitious healthy food agenda, which includes buying fresh food locally and/or buying certified organic food; avoiding food raised with growth hormones and antibiotics; encouraging group purchasing organizations (GPOs) to support healthy food in healthcare; supporting local farmers and farming organizations; introducing farmers markets and on-site food box programs; reducing food waste; and establishing an overarching food policy at each health facility. More than 200 hospitals have signed the HCWH “Healthy Food in Healthcare Pledge.” Signers pledge to work toward developing sustainable food systems in their facilities. To learn more about HCWH’s work on food and other issues related to health care www.healthyfoodinhealthcare.org.