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Why???

I am not surprised that the Senate and House of Representatives cast their votes to send the DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act to President Obama to sign, but I am saddened that President Obama signed it, and so willingly!

Essentially, for all of its purported good, it does nothing to protect the health of Americans and will not cause any meaningful information to be labeled on foods manufactured using GMOs. The DARK Act is wasted time and energy and is meaningless legislation that does nothing for America’s health or environmental crises. It does allow corporations an escape hatch when it comes to GMOs and more than a few elected officials to “pat” themselves on their backs. The biotech farms and grocery manufacturers of American lobbies are powerful—they wield heavy swords. The congressional and presidential backbone to stand up and protect the environment or our health doesn’t get any of them reelected.

Well, common sense tells me that something is amiss. What is amiss is that our food supply is over processed and laden with empty calories, and the DARK Act does nothing to help consumers (sometimes called constituents) get better information to make more informed healthy food choices. I understand the game. However, it would have been nice if Congress would have changed the rules and required real information through legislation, but they didn’t! Shocking (wink, wink)! It’s sad, but that’s okay, I can live with it. Congress can do all the grandstanding they want. Monsanto, the sugar lobby, and the GMA can spin and spin to their hearts’ content on how their products are safe. That is what they have always done. It is good for their profits, though not good for your health or the environment. The only things that have changed are: 1) the aforementioned companies and lobbies will no longer have to spend millions of dollars of their profits to fight labeling laws state by state and 2) the states, which is you and me, now have less control.

The fact that Congress even remotely toyed with passing a GMO labeling bill tells me that healthy-minded consumers have been putting the “hurt” on some multinational food and chemical companies. All we need to do is keep the pressure on their profit streams and continue to not support their products with our dollars. So in essence, the game hasn’t changed and the players are still the same. It is still us against them.

As for the Klesick family? We are going to continue to support companies that are committed to organic and GMO-free principles. I am not confused or deceived by their advertising or the new DARK Act passed by Congress.

Let’s continue to work together by saying “Yes” to better food companies and we will continue to change our food system for everyone just by eating. The last time I checked, you are free to eat whatever you want, so let’s exercise that freedom one bite at a time.

We are changing the food system!

Farmer Tristan

 

 

Recipe: Roasted Beets and Carrots with Rosemary Butter

Ingredients:

1 bunch beets, greens removed, peeled and cubed

1 bunch carrots, greens removed, peeled and cubed

3 tablespoons butter or ghee

3 garlic cloves, mashed

½ teaspoon dried rosemary

Sea salt, to taste

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Place the beets in a large mixing bowl, and the carrots in a 9 x 13 glass baking dish. (Mixing the roots separately keeps the carrots from turning pink from beet juice.)

3. Place the butter or ghee in a microwave-safe coffee mug and add the garlic. Microwave until the butter is melted. Stir in the dried rosemary.

4. Pour half of the melted butter mixture over the beets, and pour half over the carrots. Sprinkle generously with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Toss each of the root vegetables to coat them with the butter mixture.

5. Dump the beets into the baking dish with the carrots.

6. Roast for 55 minutes, stirring halfway through.

7. Serve.

Recipe adapted from paleomg.com

 

 

Know Your Produce: Starkrimson Pears

Starkrimson pears are a summer pear variety that is excellent for fresh eating and salads or paired with a strong cheese like blue cheese or goat cheese. The striking crimson color of Starkrimson pears makes it a great choice for coloring up a green salad.

Unlike most other fruits, pears ripen from the inside out, so by the time they are soft on the outside the inside flesh may be overripe and mealy. Leave unripe pears at room temperature in order to induce ripening. To speed up the ripening process, place pears in a brown paper bag. This traps ethylene (a naturally occurring gas) which pears produce as they ripen. To determine if a pear is ripe, check the neck of the pear daily. Apply gentle pressure with your thumb to the stem end of the fruit. Once it gives slightly to pressure it is ripe and ready to enjoy.

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GMOs Then, GMOs Now.

My dad has been talking about GMOs for a long time. I dug up this newsletter from October 2000. Enjoy! ~Andrew

The Genetically Engineered Foods (GEF) debate appears under other names like Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) or Frankenstein Foods. GMOs are around today primarily because of a societal problem: DEPENDENCE and SHORT SIGHTEDNESS. What do we do when we’re sick? We run to the doctor. We do this because we are hoping for some cure-all that will take care of the problem NOW! Never mind that we have been abusing our bodies with a poor nutritional diet for years.

We, as a people, have long forgone the ability to think for ourselves. If it is in a package and says “low fat” or “natural” and the picture is appealing we will put it in the shopping cart. It doesn’t matter that the manufacturer has added a huge amount of sugar to make the flavor palatable or some sort of chemical to replace the natural fat. We trust a product just because it says natural, without reading the label. And when we pass through the checkout stand another vote is tallied for nutritionally poor food. After all, the USDA and the FDA have assured us that if it is in the store it is good for us or if it is in the pharmacy it is safe to use. I’m afraid that the GMO products are no different. Many will pull them off the shelves, trusting the government for their health.

GMOs are the panacea for poor farming practices that have plagued this country for 60 years. In the beginning of this petro-chemical age, around the early 1940s, there were a few farmers experimenting with chemical fertilizers. The chemicals were used as “vitamins,” if you will, to provide a boost to the plants, and they did. However, the reason that the chemicals provided the boost was because the farmers had been adding compost and manures back into their fields maintaining its fertility levels.

The problem occurred when the farmers decided to forgo sound farming practices and just start using chemicals to grow crops. This type of thinking is similar to living on vitamins only. After a few seasons the health of plants started to deteriorate (and so did their nutritional value) and the pests arrived to feed on these unhealthy plants.

What was the solution? Was it to return to farming organically? Unfortunately, not. Instead, pesticides were developed. We also decided that we needed herbicides to chemically control weeds. Can you see the parallels in the American population due to poor food, easy living, convenience, etc? The farmers pressed ahead; after all, the USDA said the chemicals were safe to use, the universities said they were safe to use, and of course the fertilizer sales people said they were safe to use. While the farmer is partially to blame for using the chemicals, the government, industry, and the consumers are equally to blame. Today many farmers are trying to switch to better farming practices, now that they have found their land basically dead, with no microorganisms left.

It sounds a lot like people. When a life-threatening disease occurs, it is usually then that we decide to eat more naturally and become motivated to change our lifestyle. Each small step we take towards a healthier lifestyle the easier it becomes and the more satisfying life is.

Together, we are making a choice for a better, healthier food supply, for now and for our future.

tristan-sign

Tristan Klesick

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Too Big To Fail

That was the battle cry of DC when the economy collapsed in ‘08. Yet, the large greedy financial institutions were then rewarded with a bailout, while many Americans lost their investments or jobs or homes. It feels like Congress is adopting a similar attitude towards Monsanto and other proponents of GMO technology.

The House of Representatives has passed the DARK Act in favor of protecting GMO companies from each individual state working on this issue. Why does a $15,000,000,000.00 (yes that is right, a $15 billion company) need legislative help to compete in a free market system? Congress is wrong to enter this fight on behalf of Monsanto and the other GMO companies.

If Congress really wants to clarify the issue, they should require labeling and give citizens the right to know instead of protecting GMO companies. Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association could then spend their money advertising trying to build their case to the public for why GMO’s are safe.

I am not proposing a label that bludgeons companies that manufacture GMO’s or food manufacturers that use GMO products in their ingredients. I believe that a simple addition of an * to each GMO ingredient on the label with the note “*Genetically Modified” located at the bottom is all that’s needed. That’s it!  Simple, straightforward, honest!

I believe that this is what Congress should be doing, then allow the American people to decide what they want to eat.

The labeling issue has important long term ramifications for our nation’s health and the future of farming. Therefore, our senators should temper the House of Representatives’ appetite to protect GMO companies and not pass their version. Instead, labeling GMO’s should be the law of the land.

Please contact your senators today and let them know that you would like them to not pass the DARK Act. Also, if you agree with my idea for labeling please let them know that as well.

Senator Maria Cantwell

425-303-0114

Senator Patty Murray

425-259-6515

 

Thank you.

 

tristan-sign

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Join Me in Protecting the Integrity of Our Food Supply

Locally, we have been fighting to preserve farmland and now I need your help to convince our two Congress Representatives to vote NO on HR1599: the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act. This bill essentially prevents states from adopting their own GMO laws and REVERSES any laws that have already passed. That is the wrong kind of leadership on this issue.

The anti-GMO community is calling this the DARK Act (Denying Americans the Right to Know Act).  I have spoken with Congressman Rick Larsen and Congresswoman Suzan Delbene’s office and neither of them are committing at this time on which way they are going to vote. The vote is in two days – I know how I would vote!

Please click on the link and express your opinion. The vote is scheduled for Wednesday or Thursday. Also, please share this and let’s let our representatives know that GMO’s are not the future and should not receive preferential treatment from the federal government. ASK them to vote NO on HB 1599, aka the DARK Act.

 

Tristan

 

 

Act Now on GMO Labeling to Stop the “DARK” Act

Contact your Representative in Congress today!

From the National Organic Coalition 

The innocuously named HR 1599: the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act has been dubbed the DARK Act (Denying Americans the Right-to-Know Act) by members of the good food movement. The DARK Act will be voted on in Congress next week.

The DARK Act will:

  • Prevent states from adopting their own GMO labeling laws and reverse laws that have already passed.
  • Prevent state or county laws regulating GMO crops.
  • Prevent the Food and Drug Administration from requiring companies to label GMO ingredients and instead continue a “voluntary” labeling policy. In 14 years, not one company has voluntary labeled products containing GMO ingredients.

Take action now to stop the DARK Act!

  1. Call the Capitol Hill Switchboard at 202-224-3121, and ask for your Representative’s office where you can leave her or him a message.
    Click here to find out who your Representative is.
  2. Click here to send an email: Tell Congress to oppose the DARK Act and support mandatory GE food labeling!

Below is some sample language for your message to your Representative.
Please customize this to fit your voice.

Please oppose HR 1599 (the “Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act”). Congress should focus on the labeling solutions that Americans are asking for – not legislation written by and for big food and chemical companies that only serves to keep Americans in the dark.

You may also thank legislators who have come out against the Dark Act and for labeling:

Chris Gibson of New York
Peter DeFazio of Oregon
Barbara Boxer of California

For more information, and to send a message today, click here.

GMO food labeling is important to Americans, with over 90% consistently supporting transparency in the marketplace. In 2013 and 2014 there were over 70 GMO labeling bills introduced across 30 states, with laws being passed in Maine, Connecticut and Vermont.

View this post on Cornucopia.org

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Bees and Butterflies

There has been a lot of news surrounding the honey bees and butterflies in the agricultural world. Large multi-national companies are spending/investing big dollars into research to figure out why these two insects, primarily honey bees, are dying in droves.

Honey bees are best known for their honey, but their pollination services are the most sought after commodity. It only makes sense that honey bees and Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) are making headlines and garnering the lion’s share of research dollars.

Honestly—no, bluntly—honey bees and butterflies are really “canaries in the coal mine.” They are bell weather indicators to the health of our agricultural systems. If the health of honey bees is an indication of the health of our food supply, we are in trouble, big trouble.

I would make the stretch to say that conventional or chemical agriculture and most non-organic world farms are detrimental to the ability of honey bees to survive. American farmers have plenty of toxic options to kill pest, weeds and anything else they don’t want competing with their crops, and, unfortunately, there are no selective insecticides. Farmers just kill the good and the bad and wreak havoc on the balance of nature. And really, there are no bad or good insects, they each provide an important ecological function, just some insects are more desirable or beneficial in our minds.

I would contend that we are not going to solve the plight of the honey bee, butterfly or the thousands of unnamed insects until we embrace the problem. The honey bee die-off is the symptom, much like heart disease is a symptom. The solution mostly lies in changing how we farm, not changing the honey bee.

Large chemical companies are lining up to “help” solve, in my opinion, the very problem they have created with the production of their chemical products. It is, at best, an expensive public relations campaign or possibly some form of mitigation. I have little faith that the research will yield actual solutions because that would require these companies to go out of business, which is not an option for them.

Just maybe, if the American public wants to save the honey bee, it might inadvertently save itself because the only thing that is going to save the honey bee is a change in how we farm. One thing is for sure, improving the health of the American people has not proven itself to be a big enough driver to elicit the change, but maybe the honey bee will have enough sting to make it happen!

The other way to save the honey bee is to continue to do what you are doing now—supporting local farms that value all life and raise food that doesn’t support the chemical companies.

 

tristan-sign

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Organic, Conventional, and Chemical

I was reading in one of my farm papers and I was drawn to an article about biotech sugar beets and how this massive farm company (19,000 acres) was so thankful that the USDA had deregulated GMO sugar beets. I have actually met the president of this farm company a few years ago, which is also why the article caught my attention. I have been following the GMO debacle for years. What really set me thinking was a new shift in thinking.

In the past, farmers have been categorized as either conventional (those that use synthetic chemicals) or organic (those that don’t). But this president was also thankful that the USDA allowed GMO sugar beets, because one of his field managers said, and I paraphrase, “I was going to quit if I had to go back to conventional farming.” What this means to me is we have moved from two types of farming paradigms to three. We now have organic, conventional, and chemical farmers now! That field manager didn’t want to go back to using plows, discs and mechanical weeding, he just wants to plant, spray, and harvest. Talk about having to reread and reread and reread that statement. I am so grieved by this thinking. We are moving farther and farther away from the ability to farm without Monsanto’s GMO laced poison crops. Sure there are pockets of farmers like ourselves, but there are literally hundreds of millions of acres of acres now being farmed chemically and using GMO crops that it will be harder and harder to turn the tide on this trend.

We need to win this battle for good food. There are two ways to win this fight. First, don’t buy GMO products. This alone would cause these companies to change farming practices. Right now the money is too good to change. Hit them in the pocketbook and we will see change. And second, labeling. MANDATORY LABELING of GMO foods will “encourage” farmers, processors, and marketers to change more quickly when the public shies away from GMO products.

Future generations of people deserve the right to eat real food, from seeds that are not injected with pesticides and herbicides, grown in soil that is alive and fertile. That is what we believe and that is how we farm.

Thanks for being co-laborers in this fight for good food.