Synthetic and harmful dyes are found in all sorts of food items. From granola bars to fruit roll-ups to M&Ms to Kraft salad dressings to Kid Cuisine frozen meals and more. In fact, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) notes that each year manufacturers pour about 15 million pounds of synthetic dyes into the foods that kids are most likely to eat. Brightly colored breakfast cereals, over the top neon fruit drinks, and vividly colored candies are all mass marketed to kids and we’re buying those colors up; a dangerous move according to CSPI’s newest report, “Food Dyes: A Rainbow of Risks.” The report calls out the serious health concerns associated with the nine currently approved dyes used in conventionally produced food products.
I received this the other day from my friend, Edwin Shank, an area organic, grass based raw dairy farmer.
Edwin and his family are doing things right, here in South Central Pennsylvania. The farm is gorgeous, the jersey herd beautiful, and the products wonderful!
Below read the week’s newsletter wherein Edwin seeks to follow the logic behind the purported dangers of consuming unpasteurized dairy products.
Hello Friends,
Okay, so last week’s Fresh Thoughts on Fresh Food stirred your thinking a little. Many of you liked it and passed it on to friends, but some of you had further questions… questions particularly about the ‘building of immunity’ approach to health instead of ‘kill all bacteria’ approach to health. Permit me to explain a little further.
As I stated last week, these are my answers, not necessarily the answer or your answers.
Let’s start with an analogy. According to the CDC, there are nearly 3800 drowning deaths per year in USA. That works out to a little more than 10 deaths by drowning per day. For every death caused by drowning there are another 4 near-drownings involving hospitalization, and many times permanent brain damage.
These are sobering facts. This is reality for some families somewhere in America every day. It is only normal for parents and others who care for the health and well being of our communities to ask the obvious question. What can we do to protect ourselves and our loved ones from a similar tragedy?
Since all drowning occurs in water, we might quite logically conclude that water is the enemy and that the best preventive would be to prohibit people from getting into water. Make laws. Pass regulations. Establish a Federal Drowning Prevention agency to enforce the laws. The FDP would arrest anyone who dared to violate the law which obviously was established for public welfare.
You see where I’m going with this. The alternative drowning prevention is to learn to swim and to teach your children to swim. The ability to swim makes you and your loved ones practically immune to drowning while avoiding water like the plague only leaves your family more vulnerable. More vulnerable since you can be sure that sometime in your life, in spite of your best attempts, and those of the FDP, you or your children will find yourselves unexpectedly in water without the least idea how to save yourselves.
Swimming does not make one 100% immune to drowning of course, so the FDP will always publicize a few highly emotional stories per year (complete with videos) in which those who were experienced swimmers still drowned. Parents who dared to risk their children’s lives by attempting to teach them to swim could be prosecuted for willful endangerment and their children taken from them. After all, they were willfully, carelessly, callously ignoring data from the CDC which irrefutably documents thousands of deaths per year caused by water.
I know this analogy is not perfect, so don’t drag me through the coals to tell me so, but there are many parallels.
About 5000 people die per year in America of food borne illness. These also are sobering facts. And it is only normal for parents and others to ask the obvious question. What can we do to protect ourselves?
Many well-meaning people have concluded that bacteria are the enemy and so have set out to kill… set out to sterilize themselves and their environment. Kill all the bacteria! Fight BAC! Buy Purell… put a dispenser in every room. Get antibacterial soap. Anti-biotics for every sniffle. Outlaw unpasteurized cider. Pasteurize nuts and almonds too. Outlaw raw milk and raw milk cheeses. These foods may contain pathogens!
There is only one problem with these bacteriaphobic actions and reactions. In spite of our best attempts, in spite of living in constant fear of the microbe and in spite of government efforts to pass food safety regulation… If we chose to live this way, we and our children will someday find that a stray bacterium has penetrated into our sterile bubble… and our artificially protected, flabby immune systems will have no defense against it.
The alternative defense against foodborne illness is to embrace bacteria as a part of a larger eco-system within which we humans try to integrate ourselves. We focus on life instead of killing. Pro-biotic instead of Anti-biotic. This is what raw milk, raw kefir and raw cheese and raw kombucha tea are all about… building immunity and health! We learn to swim and teach our children to swim. Instead of fearing the water we relax and enjoy life as God created it! We embrace living whole foods. Whole foods full of immunity building probiotic bacteria, living foods full of nutrient absorbing living enzymes. Whole living foods full of unadulterated, unprocessed, unmessed-with, cell-nourishing, cell-repairing raw fats and protein.
Only living foods give life. Only living foods full of a diversity of natural microflora from our local, natural environment can provide the education and information that our immune systems desperately need to actually protect us as God designed it.
God has designed the entire eco-system to live in harmony with bacteria. The sooner we drop our hubris and accept this humbling fact the wiser we will be.
God bless you all, Edwin Shank
Maureen Diaz is a certified Liberation Wellness Nutritionist, Educator, and Cooking Instructor. She works from home where she oversees the education and daily life of her large family. Maureen has also produced 3 cooking DVD’s including her latest available now, the Liberation Wellness Cooking DVD. For purchasing information email Maureen at: mamasfollies@gmail.com or visit her website, NourishingTraditionalCook.com, which is (sigh) still currently under construction.
Just got the Liberation Diet Book and have read it twice!
I have it on my husband’s side of the table in hopes he takes an interest as well.
2 1/2 years ago I went on Dr. Bernstein’s diet and lost 85 lbs, my problem has been maintaining the weight loss, I’m up 10 lbs and can’t seem to kick my sugar cravings which I indulge in once a week.
Maybe my cravings are coming from not enough fat and too much sugar free yogurt, who knows.
I went to the Nutritionsmart down the street from my home and was able to buy grass fed unhomongenized milk, whole organic butter, whole organic cheese and whole yogurt.
I no longer have a gallbladder so I am easing my way into the Liberation Diet but on day 2, no sugar cravings…..such a blessing!
Thank you for your book and your email reply for my order.
There seems to be a correlation between all the elements discussed in this post, I hope you will take your time, watch the videos and see if you can perceive a connection also.
Get Them While They’re Young!
When I was a young boy growing up in Philadelphia, I entered the public school system in the mid 1960′s just after school prayer had been removed. (God expelled) I went to church like any good Catholic did in those days (Easter and Christmas), but mostly didn’t think about God very much.
New God in the fourth grade
Mr. Humay was my 4th grade teacher, he was a very smart man and I respected him a great deal. It was Humay that first taught me about the “origins of life.”
First I learned about dinosaurs and fossils and all manner of prehistoric eras, I memorized them all, and was very in tune with Brontosaurus, Triceratops, and Tyrannosaurus-Rex.
I imagined how amazing it must have been to live in the “Pre-Historic” age!
I soon learned that the earth was millions and millions of years old, and that the universe came into existence out of nothing as a result of the “Big Bang”!
Incredible, how everything evolved out of nothing!
Soon after I learned that in the old days men used to foolishly believe in God and creation, but that we now know better, and religion was for backward, superstitious people! WOW – How smart I felt!
I was obviously of superior intellect as I totally bought into this ridiculous theory that was presented to me as factual!
My Scientific God didn’t have answers
As I approached my early 20’s, I was troubled and confused with my relationships with people and life in general, I knew I was missing something, but wasn’t sure what it was. The world seemed to be a little crazy, and I sometimes acted crazy, and wasn’t sure why I could behave normally most of the time, but have these lapses of character.
I looked for answers in the world, but after all, what can we expect, we were just evolved animals!
The foundations of my learned belief system (Darwinism) were failing me. It was then I received a gift given to my by my brother Joey – a Gideon’s Bible.
Fell Down Like the Berlin Wall
I had never read the Bible before and was amazed when I read the first verse which reads:
Gen 1:1 “ In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth”
I knew immediately that this was true, and sensed that God had showed me this through His kindness, it was like the Berlin wall was knocked down in my mind, and I knew at last I had a taste of absolute truth. This encounter with the Word of God helped me to understand Sin and why I and others acted the way we do, and also about the true time-line of the Earth, and how humans are Sacred, and not just mammals evolved from bugs!
The exquisite design of the universe and the incredible array of creatures on Earth of course couldn’t have been a result of random events evolving from nothing! Just as a tornado hitting a junkyard couldn’t possibly cause the creation of a brand new car, so some explosion no one saw could not have created this infinitely complex universe and this amazing Earth and it’s crown jewel – Man.
Science Promotes Fables
Of the many new and wonderful truths I learned from God’s word is that all men are liars, and God alone is true. This became apparent as I began to understand that evolutionary theory is just that – a theory! Just a very glorious lie. And a pretty bad one at that, but it’s promoted as if it is absolute truth – by the authority of science.
But where did science gain this authority? Clearly to me at least this has nothing to do with science, but it is the religion of replacing God with science, and science creates its own gospel or religion which is presented as absolute truth! This precedent of false science as “God” has begun to dominate the world since Charles Darwin wrote his “theory” back in 1860.
Many godless philosophers began to read the writings of Darwin and incorporated them into their own thinking such as Karl Marx and Adolph Hitler, (who also just happened to be a strict VEGETARIAN!)
If indeed Darwinism was true than the Survival of the Fittest is the real principle of life. So the logical extension of this theory is that certain people are more fit to live than others. The Aryan Master race concept used by the Nazi party in Germany is founded in this false doctrine.
Eugenics was a natural outgrowth of the new Darwinist religion, since man is no longer created in the image of God, and are just like other animals, then of course it makes sense to breed them like horses or dogs and get rid of the “less fit” or defective babies!
the following is a definition of Eugenics-
Eugenics is the study and practice of selective breeding applied to humans
Eugenics was widely popular in the early decades of the 20th century, but has largely fallen into disrepute after having become associated with Nazi Germany. Since the postwar period, both the public and the scientific communities have associated eugenics with Nazi abuses, such as enforced racial hygiene, human experimentation, and the extermination of “undesired” population groups. However, developments in genetic, genomic, and reproductive technologies at the end of the 20th century have raised many new questions and concerns about the meaning of eugenics and its ethical and moral status in the modern era.
Dr. Price Defeats the Nazi Eugenics
Although this great truth is not widely known today, Dr. Weston Price, the father of clinical nutrition, proved that in order to improve the human gene pool, proper nutrition was necessary , not racial profiling!
Dr Weston Price was influenced by Darwinism and genetics. And early on he, like many of his class and educational background, was an advocate of eugenics, although he had abandoned it by the early 1930s. He came to believe that God through nature had established laws that each species has to follow to avoid degeneration. In a speech to fellow congregants at his Cleveland church in 1929, Price states: “I believe that science has done more to help us believe in God in the last few
years than religion has done within the last fifty years.”
The problem is that the true science that Dr. Price promoted is in conflict with the fantasy science that many in the modern world promote. And facts and science don’t matter when you have a religious belief that must be protected at all cost.
Eugenics Evoles into Planned Parenthhood and the Abortion Movement
Evolutionary Theory and Cholesterol Theory
Starting in the beginning of the 20th century, fake food manufacturers’ started to put forth the idea that saturated fats were unhealthy. This concept was a natural outgrowth of companies wanting to sell cheap vegetable oils instead of healthy fats like butter and lard. This fantasy science was furthered with the work of Ancel Keys and the highly controversial Seven Countries Study. This was a very manipulated study and yet is still the basis of the pseudo-health principle, that saturated fats cause disease!
With this first of many “fake scientific studies” almost always paid for by parties who had a stake in promoting cholesterol as evil, the so-called “scientific community” was up and running with this new Low-Fat God! Although there is no scientific proof of any kind to show a health benefit to cutting back on cholesterol, Butter has now become the Great SATAN! And Lard is a four-letter word you don’t say too loud in public!
Global Warming??
Whenever we see or hear about what’s really going on in the food supply, somehow it never quite makes it into the mainstream media. This is the same mechanism that squashes information about the Eugenics agenda and of course Creation concepts. Lately we have seen this bad science policy also applied to Global Warming, another very questionable concept that has used science as religion to push an agenda that is more concerned with the planet than the people on the planet. This is also a Darwinist doctrine, as the highest value on the planet are not the plants or animals but the humans, created in the likeness and image of God!
Just as many scientists today have uncovered evidence about the fraudulent nature of the Global Warming Theory, soDr. Weston Price had uncovered incredible scientific proof that the cholesterol theory is not true, and that the nutrients found only in cholesterol are the most important to human health. His research puts to rest the cholesterol theory, the eugenics theory, and of course if you still think that lightning hit a mud puddle and created the universe, you may want to watch this Ben Stein Video
I can relate to Ben Stein and the scientists he discovered were being ostracized for trying to examine the evidence, just as we here at Liberation Wellness are trying to examine the evidence for real food.
Witch Doctor Medicine has Replaced the Church
“Physicians have taken the place of priests;
vaccination plays the same initiatory role as baptism, and is accompanied by the same threats and fears;
the search for health has replaced the quest for salvation;
the fight against disease has replaced the fight against sin;
eradication of viruses has taken the place of exorcising demons;
the hope of physical immortality (cloning, genetic engineering) has been substituted for the hope of eternal life;
pills have replaced the sacrament of bread and wine;
donations to cancer research take precedence over donations to the church;
a hypothetical universal vaccine could save humanity from all its illnesses, as the Savior has saved the elect from all its sins;
the medical power has become the government’s ally, as was the Catholic Church in the past;
“charlatans” are persecuted today as “heretics” were yesterday;
dogmatism rules out promising alternative medical theories;
the same absence of individual responsibility is now found in medicine, as previously in the Christian religion;
patients are alienated from their bodies, as sinners used to be from their souls.”—Olivier Clerc
Origin of the Liberation Diet aka Kevin’s Program
When I first began to realize that the nutrition protocols I was taught were wrong, I was already a person who did not trust science falsely so called. I had already been fooled and mislead for many years by bad science masquerading as truth, so it didn’t take long for me to conclude ”something’s not right about this low-fat, high-carb, eat many small meals a day, drink a lot of water, plenty of fiber, soy is wonderful, health program.”
I didn’t put my faith in it. I realized the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t love me – or have a wonderful plan for my life.
This is how I was able to get a jump-start into true health with the Liberation Diet!
Looking back on it, again God in His kindness showed me these truths to help me and others in their life. We always like to take credit, but any wisdom I seem to have is given by my designer, God.
How Long?
With the USDA again releasing a food pyramid that recommends even lower fat and higher carbohydrate ratios in the diet, when farmers are constantly being harassed and threatened for selling fresh real milk to people who are just trying keep themselves and their families healthy, when an well-respected Medical Doctor questions the necessity of so many vaccines, and has his medical license removed, and these are just the current bad events!
you might ask the question, how much longer is God going to put up with this?
Alex talks with Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the British former surgeon and researcher who was banned by the General Medical Council from practicing medicine in UK …
Michael Jackson’s Doctor free after giving 8 times the limit for Propofol
This past Saturday my dear friend, Jonas Stoltzfus, read this poem to all of us who had gathered for our annual spring event. He had recently composed it in response to the raids conducted by the FDA on area farms. Jonas himself is a passionate farmer, well familiar with the local and sustainable food movement and very concerned with the direction our governments are headed in this arena.
Please read and consider Jonas’ thoughts, and pass this piece on freely; it is important! We all need to consider what is happening to our most basic personal freedoms in the United States, and the world.
JUST LEAVE US ALONE
We don’t need your license, permission to be,
In the home of the brave and the land of the free.
No permits are needed, it’s easy to see
All we ask of you, is just leave us be.
Our forefathers left Europe many years ago,
And came to America, to plant and to grow.
In Europe persecution is what drove us out,
They hammered us bad with government clout.
They beat us and hung us, some were skinned alive,
And boiled up in oil, like a bunch of French fries.
We were drownded and pounded, to make us submit
To the official religion, how they interpreted it.
But we fled to America, to the land of the free
To put down new roots, and it worked, you can see.
We’re peace-loving people, small farmers most,
But now again seems, like we’re government toast.
It looks like we’re fallin’ on hard times again.
This time seems the leaders, are trying us to skin
By economic pressure, make us change our ways,
Make us comply, to the regulation daze.
For years we’ve sold food to all who would buy,
Do our best to keep it whole, we always would try
So now all we’re asking, in our place in the sun,
Is just for some peace, and just leave us alone.
Just leave us alone, is all that we ask,
Let each of us get on, with what is our task.
We get up each morning, and do our own thing
As we’re working along, sometimes we sing.
We’re producing the food that many folks like,
Most of the stuff does a body real good.
Maybe some of our bakin’ is just a tad sweet,
But the bread that we bake, is a pleasure to eat.
And all that we ask, is just leave us be
Is that just too hard? Something you can’t see?
We’re the small time farmers, in love with our land
And the animals we raise, with a skilled, gentle hand.
We pasture our stock, cows, chickens and pigs,
Sheep, horses and goats, green grass they all dig.
People come to our farms, they line up to buy
The stuff we produce, we can look in the eye
Of each of our customers, friends, neighbors too,
And be sure it’s the best, I’m just tellin’ you.
We’re like the King’s food taster, in those days of yore,
who checked out each thing, makin’ absolutely sure,
There was nothing that threatened, the life of the king.
And all that we ask, is to leave us alone
As we grow food to eat, boil the broth from the bone.
We pay our school taxes, then have our own schools
And most of the time, stick close to the rules.
We take stuff to market, vegetables, cheese and meat,
And meet with our customers, a firm handshake to greet.
We take care of each other, no public welfare we need,
Just leave us alone, is now what we plead.
We don’t want your handouts, no bailouts we need
Just leave us alone, we now again plead.
Written in response to the FDA visit at the
Dan Allgyer farm at 5AM one morning several weeks ago,
by Jonas K.Stoltzfus, with input from Judith H. Stoltzfus
and Liz Reitzig May 13, 2010
Now, please, please, do share! Pass this around, and let’s get people thinking! And thank you Jonas & Judy, for your dedication, inspiration, hard work, and example. I love and appreciate you both very much!
Maureen Diaz is a certified Liberation Wellness Nutritionist, Educator, and Cooking Instructor. She works from home where she oversees the education and daily life of her large family. Maureen has also produced 3 cooking DVD’s including her latest available now, the Liberation Wellness Cooking DVD. For purchasing information email Maureen at: mamasfollies@gmail.com or visit her website, NourishingTraditionalCook.com, which is currently under construction.
We’ve sent out several alerts about the food safety bills in Congress, and are continuing to monitor the situation with S. 510, the Senate’s version of the bill. As written, this bill would impose extremely burdensome and unnecessary requirements on the thousands of small farmers and food processors who are producing safe, nutrient-dense foods for their local communities. It’s critical that the bill be amended or stopped!
The bill’s progress has been slowed by controversial proposed amendments. The first controversy is over Senator Tester’s (D-MT) proposed amendment that would exempt small-scale processors and direct-marketing farmers from the most onerous requirements. Senator Hagan (D-NC) is co-sponsoring the amendments, which are critical to the continued vitality of the local foods movement. Over 150 organizations have signed a letter of support for these amendments, posted at http://farmandranchfreedom.org/sff/Amend-S510-May-25.pdf
Another major source of controversy is Senator Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) proposal to ban Bisphenol A (BPA) from baby bottles and other food and drink containers. Studies have shown that BPA can migrate from can linings into food, disrupting the endocrine system with many potential health consequences. Several industrial food organizations have threatened to withdraw their support for S. 510 if the BPA amendment is included. There’s also controversy over a tracing provision by Senator Brown (D-OH).
All of these developments have slowed the bill down and pose barriers to its passage. The Senate may vote on the bill this month, but it’s not certain. We must use this time to build more support for the Tester-Hagan amendments!
TAKE ACTION
Here are three actions you can take to protect local foods and farms:
1) Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Keep it short (150 words or less). Here are a few talking points:
A) One size does not fit all. All of the well-publicized incidents of contamination in recent years occurred in industrialized food supply chains that span national and even international boundaries. Imposing an industrial-style regulatory framework on local farmers and food producers is unnecessary, unfair, and counterproductive.
B) Local and state governments have well-established programs to protect public health. In most areas of the country they are already working with small producers to develop practical guidelines that are appropriately scaled to the level of risk in a direct-to-consumer transaction. Local regulation is more than enough for local foods.
C) Explain briefly how the proposed law would impact your farm, your farmers market or your cooperative. Make it personal to you and your community!
D) Conclude by calling for your Senators to support the Tester-Hagan amendments. It helps to mentioned their names (ex: “I urge Senators Cornyn and Hutchison to co-sponsor these important amendments.”), to catch their staff’s attention.
2) Get your local newspaper to publish an editorial in support of the Tester-Hagan amendments. Here are some strategies that can help:
A) Approach the editorial page editor or editorial board and ask for a meeting to discuss concerns about how the Federal Food Safety Bill will impact small local food businesses and farmers market vendors. If an in-person meeting won’t work, then set up a phone call and email them materials ahead of time.
B) Come prepared with materials, including the sign on letter and other talking points. Additional resources are posted at http://farmandranchfreedom.org/food_safety_bills_09
3) Contact your U.S. Senators (even if you have called before), and ask to speak with the staff person who handles food safety. Ask for them to co-sponsor the Tester-Hagan amendment to S. 510. Please circle back to let us know what the response is.
Thank you for all your hard work on this!
Kevin Brown
Sadiqua Hamdan
Annette Presley
Debbie Wysocki
Paul Ericson
Maureen Diaz
Janet Demeter
Liz Reitzig
Julie Burns
Jenny Westerkamp, RD
Lauren Snyder Grosz
Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN
let'spoon
Morley Robbins
Janet Stuck, ND, CNC, MH, CNHP
John Chisholm
Dr. Richard Walicki
Jimmy Moore
We’ve sent out several alerts about the food safety bills in Congress, and are continuing to monitor the situation with S. 510, the Senate’s version of the bill. As written, this bill would impose extremely burdensome and unnecessary requirements on the thousands of small farmers and food processors who are producing safe, nutrient-dense foods for their local communities. It’s critical that the bill be amended or stopped!
