Organic Consumers Abound

They tout such stories as a new documentary that explores dangers of genetically engineered trees and how health care reform is a “financial shell game” unless we turn to holistic health and disease prevention.

“Global poverty is a hot topic right now,” said Vandana Shiva, who is on the board of the Association. “From rock singer Bob Geldof to UK politician Gordon Brown, the world suddenly seems to be full of high-profile people with their own plans to end poverty.”

Shiva said people are perceived as “poor” if they eat food they have grown rather than “commercially distributed junk foods sold by global agri-business.”

“Yet sustenance living, which the wealthy West perceives as poverty, does not necessarily mean a low quality of life,” she said. “However much we choose to deny it, all people in all societies still depend on nature. A system like the economic growth model we know today creates trillions of dollars of super profits for corporations while condemning billions of people to poverty.”

Shiva says if we are serious about ending poverty, we have to be serious about ending the systems that create poverty by robbing the poor of their common wealth, livelihoods, and incomes.

According to writer Kristen Schwind as people across the U.S. dedicate an entire day to the contemplation and enjoyment of food this holiday, pesticides are uninvited guests.

“Simply eating exposes us to pesticides we never asked for, “she said. “The traditional Native American foods highlighted at Thanksgiving in the U.S. are still brought to the table by descendants of the people who first domesticated these plants.”

In a recent case three women who worked with their husbands in an Immokalee, FL tomato field belonging to the Ag-Mart Corporation gave birth to babies with severe birth defects.

Buying organic food reduces pesticide exposure for both farm workers and consumers, according to Schwind.

According to Mike Adams, who has studied taste and agriculture, an element called “taste inflation” of sugar, salt, and fragrance makes consumers “stupid.”

“If you studied newborn babies and were able to analyze their chemical taste sensors, you’d find they were able to experience a broad range of various tastes – the bitters in green leafy vegetables, the natural fruit sugars in apples and berries, and even the sweetness in cashews or tomatoes. Just go to any restaurant, especially those family chain restaurants, and try to order a bowl of soup. We also have sugar inflation in this country.”

Adams says everywhere you go you’re inundated with salts and sugars and that taste inflation affects brain function.

“You might be fascinated by this because it’s more than just the desensitizing of your taste to the natural flavors and subtleties in organic foods,” he said. “I think this is why we have a general lack of lucidity in the population. I don know that most of the intelligent people I’ve ever met are very careful about what they expose themselves to in terms of their senses. Silence is golden: Practice sensory silence to re-inflate your senses.”

Adams said sugar and corn syrup is not part of his diet.

“This is the state that I live in every day, “he says. “To me, dessert means eating an apple or a bowl of grapes. And remember, all the food marketing companies out there are going to try to get you hooked on even more intense flavors and tastes, because they have to outdo the previous batch of food products. This is highly offensive to healthy humans. If you were to take any of these foods or personal care products found in America and give them to indigenous tribes, they wouldn’t even touch them.”