The Food Safety & Health Myth
"Factory farms produce the safest, cleanest food."
How can we ensure our food is safe and clean? Is organic food really healthier for us?
Do you go out of your way to find organic strawberries and pesticide-free produce? But do you wonder what difference it makes? This section explores the questions at the heart of figuring out the healthiest and safest food supply—safe for eaters, safe for workers, and safe for the planet.
Take Action
Congress Passes The Monsanto Protection Act. All hands on deck!
We regret to inform you, but yesterday morning Congress succeeded in passing Section 735, aka the Monsanto Protection Act, in the Continuing Resolution spending bill. We need you to contact President Obama before he signs it and HR 933 becomes law.
Food Heroes
Food Hero: The Nelson Family
The Nelson Family in Minnesota used to raise their cattle conventionally, until illness and financial difficulties made the alternative path obvious. They switched to organic and selling milk though Organic Valley, a cooperative of farmers. Now they run a thriving family farm business. See them reflect on their transition and where it’s led them.
Q & A
Question:
We often hear that the American food system is among the safest in the world. At the same time, we also hear about multi-state foodborne illness outbreaks. How does our food system compare with others internationally? If our regulations are not strict, why not?
This notion that ours is the “safest food supply in the world” is silly rhetoric dreamed up by food lobbyists and passed on to politicians who love to use it in their stump speeches to deflect government regulation. There is no evidence this is true. Americans suffer from weekly outbreaks of food-borne illness, at times even deadly, and from eating such innocent foods as melon and peanut butter. Loved ones are lost, and lives changed forever due to our lax food safety rules.
Featured voice: Michele Simon, Public Health Lawyer & Corporate Watchdog
Question:
Are there nutritional benefits to eating organic food?
The science may be unclear on this, but that’s not why I choose to eat organic. I care about protecting the environment – the soil and water, as well as farm workers who often suffer from exposure to chemical pesticides. Also, I find buying organic produce from my local farmers market to be incredibly more fresh and tasty than conventional produce at the store.
Featured voice: Michele Simon, Public Health Lawyer & Corporate Watchdog
Question:
Organic food detractors like to talk about manure use as fertilizer as putting the “ick” in organic. Is organic food production, especially practices like using manure for fertilizer, less safe than industrial methods?
No, not intrinsically. There are safeguards in place to be sure manure is safe to use. It’s just typical for industry to use scaremongering tactics like the ick factor to confuse the issues. And why is using chemical pesticides not “icky?”
Featured voice: Michele Simon, Public Health Lawyer & Corporate Watchdog
Reports and Resources
Fast Food FACTS: Food Advertising to Children and Teens Score
Children as young as age 2 are seeing more fast food ads than ever before, and restaurants rarely offer parents the healthy kids’ meal choices. The new evaluation, the most comprehensive study of fast food nutrition and marketing ever conducted, shows that fast food marketers target children across a variety of media and in restaurants. [...]
Sugary Drinks FACTS: Food Advertising to Children and Teens Score
Young people are being exposed to a massive amount of marketing for sugary drinks, such as full-calorie soda, sports drinks, energy drinks, and fruit drinks. The study is the most comprehensive assessment of sugary drink nutrition and marketing ever conducted. The data show that companies marketing sugary drinks target young people, especially black and Hispanic [...]
Seven Things To Tell Your Friends About GMOs
There’s a lot of opinion these days about genetically engineered foods – whether they’re safe, if they should be labeled, and how they affect the environment – to name a few. To learn more about the links to health, environmental, and food security issues at the heart of the debate, Small Planet Institute‘s newest handy guide is [...]
From the Blog
Kicking McDonald’s Out: Hospitals Are Getting Serious About Food
All across the country, hospitals like this one in San Francisco are rethinking what’s on its menu and in the cafeterias. Prompted by skyrocketing rates of diet-related illnesses and with ever greater understanding of the role of good nutrition, public health professionals are starting to get serious about food.
Help us choose movie 3!
We'd love your two cents. Do you have two minutes? Please take this quick survey to help us pick the theme for our third movie. We're giving away prizes to selected survey responders, including a signed copy of Project Director Anna Lappé's Diet for a Hot Planet, the Food MythBuster DVD, and our new greeting cards. Drawing will be the week of 3/18/13 after the survey closes.
