Forty Centuries of Agriculture in Asia - the Original Organic Farmers!

Forty Centuries of Agriculture in Asia – the Original Organic Farmers!

Robert Ross

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March 12, 2012

Forty Centuries of Agriculture in Asia – the Original Organic Farmers!

Farmers of Forty Centuries: Organic Farming in China, Korea, and Japan

How did Asian farmers work the same fields for 40,000 years without destroying the land’s fertility and without applying artificial fertilizer? At the turn of the 20th century, a former official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture traveled to Asia to study their ancient farming methods and learn the answer. This landmark book chronicles his travels and observations on waste-free methods of cultivation that conserve natural resources. “One of the richest sources of information about peasant agriculture . . . one of the pioneer books on organic farming.” — The Last Whole Earth Catalog.

This amazing study of waste-free methods of cultivation shares the secrets of ancient farming methods while sharing the travels of a remarkable man who studied the conditions among agricultural peoples of Japan, China, Manchuria, and Korea at the turn of the last century. You’ll learn about their customs, their use of waste, irrigation methods, reforestation and land reclamation, cultivation of rice and tea and much more. Features over 240 illustrations and photos.

Discover how Chinese farmers have been cultivating successive crops on the same little bit of ground without any modern pesticides or chemicals! The author spent a lot of time in many Eastern countries in the early 20th century studying 40 centuries of incredible agricultural success (which their government almost destroyed in less than 50 years).

This book should be required reading for people interested in anything from a simple garden to a large organic farm. Learn what it takes to create good soil and crops — and ultimately healthy humans, too. The book follows a couple of travelers through Asia around 1909, giving their observations of the agricultural activities they see, documenting successful practices used throughout Asia at the time to maintain fertility in a heavily utilized agricultural landscape. These observations put to shame how modern commercial farms actually poison and pollute rather than nurture our resources.

The concepts and ideas in this book are a reminder for modern farmers on how to recover our long lost agricultural resources and practices.

Download the full PDF text HERE.

Read the full e-Book with pictures HERE.
Purchase a print copy of the book HERE.

Also Read:

Farming with Integrity … Organically!

Where do you get your Protein? The Sad Truth about Soy Products

Robert Ross

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February 9, 2012

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Where do you get your Protein? The Sad Truth about Soy Products

The Sad Truth about Soy in America.

Many people have a false idea of the importance of protein in their diets even after becoming vegan. Many health professionals that promote veganism still rely on out-dated data for the protein that vegans need. That doesn’t even consider the truth about soy in American — that it’s almost all genetically modified (GMO), then heavily sprayed with chemicals and pesticides and just not fit for human consumption!

You see, too much animal protein in your diet actually speeds up the aging process! The latest research shows that reducing a protein found in fish and meat actually slows the aging process and increases life expectancy. A healthy vegan diet without soy actually has all the protein you really need in a much more absorbable form. Animal products have a lot of protein but when you cook them the protein quality degrades and it becomes much harder to absorb — with many more cancer-causing byproducts. You have to eat many time the protein you need from animal products since most of it can’t be absorbed, and the by-products are full of potential carcinogens.

Ultimately, it isn’t the quantity of protein that is important at all … it is the quality! Soy beans, of course, have lots of protein but it is so hard to digest that you actually get little benefit from it. I tmay in fact do more harm than good due to the anti-nutrients, false estrogens and phyto-endocrine disrupters in soy beans can cause serious health issues.

On a raw food diet, raw, fresh and organic leafy greens and sprouts are best sources of protein to get all that your body really needs. These are just two of the many raw, vegan foods with high amounts of protein. Incorporating them into your daily meals will help you achieve optimum protein intake on a raw food diet.

Snacking on healthy, raw nuts is also a great source of protein, but remember these are also sources of a lot of fat. I also recommend, for serious raw foodists, to soak your nuts overnight to remove a lot of the fat and help start the nut’s break-down process (preparing to grow) on the complex proteins, making them more assimilable.

Hemp and Flax Seeds are also a great source of protein. Also, you can carry some around with you to snack on them, helping to make sure that you’re getting all of the protein you need. But whole grain foods and fruits, a great source of healthy carbohydrates and sugars, do not contain high amounts of proteins. Some berries that do have higher amounts of proteins include Goji and Incan berries. Here are some great sources of vegan protein (highest sources in bold).

Almonds 15%
Barley 14%
Broccoli (raw) 33%
Buckwheat 15%
Hard red wheat 15%
Kale 5% (has lots of other nutrients)
Kidney beans (raw) 58%
Lentils (raw) 34%
Mushrooms (raw) 56%
Mustard greens (raw) 41%
Peanuts 18%
Pumpkin seeds 18%
Spinach (raw) 50%
Tomatoes 19%
Wild rice 16%
Watercress (raw) 84%

Too many vegans believe the industry hype about protein, relying on soy beans for protein — the worst possible source. Soy bean protein is extremely hard for the human body to digest and utilize, creating more health problems than solutions. Even worse, most modern soy beans in America are 99% GMO (genetically modified).

“Soybeans are high in phytic acid, an acid that is present in the bran or hulls of all seeds. Phytic acid is also termed the “anti nutrient” because it can block the uptake of essential minerals – calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and especially zinc – in the intestinal tract. The soybean has one of the highest phytate levels of any grain or legume that has been studied and therefore puts you in risk of a mineral deficiency. Furthermore, soy foods contain trypsin inhibitors that inhibit protein digestion and affect pancreatic function … Last but not least, there is the concern of soy’s phytoestrogen (isoflavones) content. Soy isoflavones are phyto-endocrine disrupters, meaning they mimic the body’s naturally occurring hormone functions. This is the biggest concern because soy has the ability to disrupt normal hormone balance.”

Ignore All the Hype About Soy

Soy is the perhaps the single most hyped food product on the market today. In fact, it is specifically targeted by the food industry to vegetarians and vegans, backed by giants like Monsanto, the world’s leading manufacturer of toxic pesticides and GMO foods. So now, soy has become a commodity grown and sold throughout the world. However, some governments have recognized that GMO’s are bad for our health as well as for the environment. Countries like France, Germany, the U.K., and even China have limited or banned the use of GMO’s! still, soy has become an integral part of the vegetarian/Vegan diet despite its phony claims and alleged health benefits.

The truth about soy is that modern American soy was never actually healthy at all — and today’s GMO soy is much worse. It shouldn’t even be recognized as a food — most insects won’t even eat it! GMO foods are made by getting a virus or bacteria to attack a cell thereby artificially inserting an artificial gene. The DNA is designed to force the seed to grow into a new form of a plant,like soy.

A number of studies over the past decade have shown that GMO foods pose serious health risks to humans, domesticated animals, wildlife and the environment. Health effects can include increased toxicity, allergic reactions, antibiotic resistance, immune-suppression and even cancer. Environmentally, the use of genetic engineering is leading to out-of-control biological pollution that actually is threatening real and even organic plants with contamination or extinction.

Last but not least, the phytoestrogen in soy “mimics” the body’s naturally occurring hormones (such as estrogen) disrupting normal hormone balance. A phytoestrogen called genistein in soy can interfere with normal hormone production and inhibit the uptake of iodine by the body. The thyroid gland is also disrupted by soy, affecting things like heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature and metabolic rate. In studies , genistein has also caused a decline in fertility, ovulatory dysfunction and irregular menstrual cycles.

Other consequences of an unbalanced hormone system can be prostate and breast cancer, early puberty, endometriosis and infertility, irregular and painful menstrual periods, handle bar and stomach weight gain, acne, and depression. Remember, also, that soy is not the only estrogenic food. Dairy, meat products, plastics and even personal care products also contain estrogen-like substances.

Soy is a Staple in Asia but is Very Different from American Soy

Soy is an big part of Asian culture, but this soy is very different than the commercial and GMO junk sold in the U.S. You see, soy products in Asia are usually “cultured,” like tempeh or miso. Cultured soy has a very different nutritional profile than raw soy because the phytic acid is broken down. Also, the most common use for soy in the U.S. is to make soy protein isolate and textured vegetable protein — the basis for almost all the processed and packaged foods today that are are loaded with MSG (monosodium glutimate), a potent neurotoxin.

Also, Asians use soy foods only in very small amounts as a condiment, not a replacement for animal foods. Traditional consumption of soy in Asia is only about 2 teaspoons daily. For vegetarians and vegans in the U.S., soy can become the basis for whole meals, not to mention snacks and drinks.

Now what…

Monsanto & Friends likes to claim that soy helps prevent cancer but that is only true for traditionally fermented soybean products. The real truth about soy is that the isoflavones in GMO-based, non-fermented soy are altered and have NO anti-carcinogenic effects at all.

Soy is the most heavily marketed product that directly targets vegetarians and vegans in America today. Plus, it’s backed by the largest industrial food companies in the world. These companies are all tied to big agrochemical firms like Monsanto, the world’s leading company for pesticides and GMO foods. So today the sad truth about soy today is that it is not a health food at all, if it ever was … and definitely not in the U.S.

Also read:

What Mainstream Media Isn’t Telling You About GMO Foods!

How a Dehydrator Saved My Sanity — as well as My Health!

Robert Ross

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January 30, 2012

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How a Dehydrator Saved My Sanity — as well as My Health!

Raw Food and Dehydrators

The Physiology of Chewing!

My first experience of the raw food lifestyle was at the Optimum Health Institute in San Diego, where I eventually become a resident and teacher. The OHI program began with an intensive juice “feast” or fast for cleansing and detoxifying the body. I had two responses to my first juice feast. First, I never experienced such an energy boost in my life. I went from being chronically fatigued to having more energy than I knew what to do with!

The other response was a noticeable nostalgia for crunchy foods that required some real chewing. Of course, at OHI they tell you to “chew your drinks and drink your solids,” an admonition to chew everything you eat or drink, stimulating production of saliva and increasing the efficiency of the first stage of digestion. But that’s a lot easier to talk about than to remember to do with every sip of juice. Most importantly, it was the first glimmer I was having into the importance of chewing to our minds as well as our bodies.

You see, chewing is more than just a means of digestion. It is so important to our health that we are psychologically wired with a need to chew! We see that in our pets and even our children, but we seem to forget how important the simple act of chewing is to us all.

Take chewing gum, for example. You would think gum is nothing more than a candy with no health value at all, breath freshening aside. But it turns out that the simple act of chewing gum actually improves out state of mind. It’s not something in the gum – it’s the act of chewing! A team of psychologists at St. Lawrence University gave 159 students a battery of cognitive tasks – and those randomly assigned to gum-chewing significantly outperformed those in a control group on five out of six tests. (1)

Mastication-Induced Arousal

There is actually a real name for this phenomenon: “mastication-induced arousal.” There isn’t a whole lot of scientific evidence about the psychological importance of chewing, but the St. Lawrence definitely definitely shows that there is something there. Perhaps we’ve been wired that way to make sure we chew food rather than just wolf it down, improving the first stage of digestion. Maybe it is part of our survival instincts, making us more alert for predators and scavengers that might have designs on our latest catch. In this study we only have begun to study mastication induced behaviors.

So there I was at OHI for the very first time — and with a definite need chew. But almost all I was getting was raw veggie juice or, as some call a salad, “rabbit food.” Now OHI was telling me that I was supposed to chew my juice and drink my solids – and even a salad requires some chewing. But I believe that there are different kinds of chewing! Chewing a liquid or even my rabbit food just never had the same satisfaction for me as chewing popcorn or chips!

I eat a large raw salad almost every single day, but raw food doesn’t have the “crunch factor.” Sprouts are healthy and delicious but no significant “crunch.” Raw nuts, which ideally should be soaked, are then crunch-free. Greens – no crunch. Carrots have some crunch but not quite at the level of crunchiness you get from chips or toast. We need more than just any ol’ chewing – we need to chew something crunchy! And that is where the wonders of dehydrators can help!

You see, dehydrators bridge the gap between rabbit foods and the crunchy, cooked foods we are all so addicted to. That is why dehydrated raw foods are sometimes called “transitional” by raw foodists. You see, you take something raw, dehydrate it at under 118°F and turn it into a raw cracker, chip, treat or “bread” without destroying all the enzymes and giving it substantial crunch appeal. When I was first served dehydrated flax seed crackers at OHI, I was in heaven. Now I could really “get my teeth” into raw food!

What you Need to Know to Buy a Dehydrator

Dehydrators serve many purposes in addition to their nutritional benefits or for food preservation. With a dehydrator you can make it easier to overcome old, entrenched food addictions. Or if cooking is your passion you can replace the stove top and oven with a dehydrator and get even more enjoyment from un-cooking! And finally, with a dehydrator you can make an important but radical lifestyle change to more raw food in your diet much, much easier.

Types of Dehydrators

All the dehydrators I am writing about are electric models. You can also buy or build your own solar dehydrators. However, solar dehydrators are not ideal for raw foods because it can be difficult to control temperatures without an electric thermostat. Temperature control is essential to dehydrated raw foods because one of the big ideas behind raw is living enzymes. Enzymes die at temperatures above118°F, so you cannot let your dehydrator get above that. Believe it or not, a solar dehydrator can get much hotter, especially in southern climes or anywhere on a hot, sunny day.

With electric dehydrators there are two basic designs – vertical and horizontal. Since horizontal airflow dehydrators have much better temperature control and efficiency I only recommend these models. Vertical designs are less expensive and have stackable trays, which is convenient. However their heaters are usually located at the bottom of the unit, creating uneven heating between the bottom and top of the units. If you already have one of these, and it has a temperature control (some don’t), then you can use it to get started, but you should use a separate candy or yogurt thermometer to be sure of the internal temperatures and you will need to rotate the bottom and top trays every few hours to get even heating.

Horizontal Airflow Dehydrators

Horizontal dehydrators are rectangular-shaped boxes with 4 to 12 or more trays stacked inside the unit that slide in and out. All these units have one or two fans at the back of the unit that blow air “horizontally” across the trays, creating a much more efficient airflow with more even heating. There are 4 main types of these dehydrators:

Economy models with just a simple thermostat and 4, 5, 9 or 10 trays
Deluxe models with heavy duty motors, heaters and thermostats
Digital models with computer controlled thermostats and/or timers
Professional-quality or commercial models made of stainless steel

Excalibur Dehydrators
The first horizontal airflow design was invented by Excalibur Dehydrators, and was called the Parallexx™. The square design provides more even, faster drying and increases drying area 25% over round models. Excaliburs are available in economy and heavy-duty models with 4, 5 or 9 trays. Excalibur dehydrators are made right here in the USA.

TSM Dehydrators
TSM (“The Sausage Maker)” is one of the world’s leading sources for meat processing equipment, including some of the finest dehydrators for home and commercial kitchens. They began over 30 years ago and virtually all of the equipment they manufacture are made and designed in the USA by TSM in Buffalo, New York. TSM stainless steel dehydrators are available in deluxe home models as well as large-capacity, all digital commercial units.

Tribest Dehydrators
Though Tribest began making some of the world’s best masticating juicers over 30 years ago, they only recently entered the dehydrator market. However, they really did their homework before jumping in, designing one of the most innovative and feature-packed, and digitally controlled dehydrators available. The Tribest Sedona 9-tray Dehydrator is a real winner, though the most expensive of the molded plastic units out there. It features a 9-tray design that can be divided into two 4-tray sections, with a solid divider tray between them – each with its own fan and digital controls. Not only does this eliminate the need to rotate trays, it allows you to dehydrate two entirely different recipes using different temperatures at the same time.

What Makes a Dehydrator Work?

Horizontal Shape
Horizontal airflow dehydrators are the only designs I consider appropriate for living, raw food enthusiasts due to the importance of temperature control – also, better airflow and faster drying times inhibit growth of molds and other organisms. These units are basically just rectangular or square boxes with several removable trays stacked inside about 1.75 inches apart. Horizontal airflow dehydrators have one or two fans in the back of the unit blowing warm air over the tops of the trays for better temperature control and efficiency.

The Trays

Horizontal airflow dehydrators are the only units I consider appropriate for living, raw food enthusiasts due to the importance of temperature control for protecting the living enzymes in raw foods. Better airflow and faster drying times also inhibit growth of molds and other organisms. These units are basically just rectangular or square boxes with several removable trays stacked inside about one to two inches apart. Horizontal airflow dehydrators have fans in the back blowing warm air over the tops of the trays for better temperature control and efficiency. The trays themselves are a wide-grid type made of plastic or stainless steel. A “mesh” screen like material is placed over the trays to keep things from falling through the grid. Alternatively, drying sheets made of unbleached parchment paper, silicone or a Teflon-like, non-stick materials are used when dehydrating batters or purees for crackers, breads or fruit leathers. You can remove several trays at a time to make room for small jars when making yogurt, as well.

Heater & Fan Assembly

Sedona Dehydrator Interior — Tribest Sedona Dehydrator Dual Fan Assembly

The main purpose of a dehydrator is to blow heated air across the trays and whatever produces you put on the trays. The air is heated by a heating element using electronic resistance and then blown by a large fan. The heating element is usually just a spring-shared wire that heats up when turned on. All the horizontal airflow dehydrators have at least a thermostat to control the drying temperature by adjusting the current in the heating element. Most dehydrators operating in the range of 85 to 150 degrees F., however always remember that for raw food, enzymes are completely destroyed at temps above 118°F.

Thermostats in dehydrators on not extremely accurate since they are relatively open to increase airflow and not tightly sealed like an oven. However, they give an approximate range that is close enough for our purposes. For more accurate calibration you can use a candy or yogurt thermometer placed inside the unit to know the precise temperature. This is an important step when drying very wet items since evaporation inside a dehydrator can low internal temperatures by 10 to 20 degrees. In those cases you’ll want to increase the temperature for the first few hours even above the 118°F max to speed up initial stages of drying and the minimize to potential for mold.

Most 4, 5, 6 or 10 tray dehydrators have a single fan at the back. Smaller units have a small fan around 5 or 6 inches in diameter. They are usually 400-500 watts. The larger 9 or 10 tray models can have one or two fans in the back, improving airflow and control. These are usually around 600-800 watts.

Tribest Sedona Advanced Digital Control Panel

Thermostats & Timers

There are basically just two types of controls for dehydrators – manual and automatic or digital. Economy models simply have a manual thermostat, which you set by hand. Some better models offer a manual timer as well, like a built-in kitchen timer. Generally these are limited to a relatively short time period of 12- 24 hours – often not enough for dehydrating some raw food recipes. However, I often tell people on a budget to get a model without the timer, then just plug it into a standard heavy-duty kitchen appliance timer that you can buy online for under $20.00.

Better models offer built-in digital timers. The low cost digital models have up to 40 hours on their timers, which is enough for most things. The best models are completely automatic, digital and computer-controlled with up to 99 hours of programmable timing.

A timer can be a two-edged sword. You see, I think it is better to be aware and conscious when you a dehydrating – checking the trays regularly to make sure the process is going as planned. In some cases you may need to raise and lower temperatures a bit. Sometimes your timer can be set too long and you’ll over dry items. Worse, an automatic timer can turn a unit off if you aren’t careful before it is completely dry, leaving food on open-air trays in a warm, moist environment – a good formula for molds and fermentation! So even if you do have a fancy, computer-controlled timer, stay conscious and aware during the entire process and check your dehydrator regularly.

BPA-Free Plastics and Other Materials

Dehydrators can be made of several different types of plastics or, in more expensive models, stainless steel. Of the different plastics available, these break down into two families – standard “food-grade” plastics and BPA-Free plastics. BPA-free plastics are the latest craze online and in the media, however with dehydrators it is an over-hyped concern.

You see, BPA in plastics that have BPA’s do not out-gas at the temperatures used in a dehydrator. In fact, it takes hundreds of degrees to get any plastic to out-gas BPA. Even the leader in the field, Excalibur, doesn’t use BPA-Free plastics because they chose the best plastic for strength and durability first rather than settling only on those that catered to customers concerned about BPA-free products.

Excalibur uses two plastics in their designs, including polypropylene, considered the safest plastic around food, and polycarbonate for the case because it is virtually indestructible. FDA-approved polycarbonate is considered completely safe when used at the low temperatures inside a dehydrator.

“The use of polycarbonate plastic for food contact applications has been and continues to be recognized as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Food, the United Kingdom Food Standards Agency, the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, and other regulatory authorities worldwide. (2)

The concern about the safety of polycarbonates started in 1999 when the TV show 20/20 reported a warning from Consumer Reports about polycarbonate baby bottles releasing biphenyl-A (BPA), a chemical used in making polycarbonate. However, this only happened when microwaving or boiling polycarbonate baby bottles, repeatedly subjecting them to temperatures over 250 degrees F., which can never happen in dehydrators. Newer models, like the Tribest Sedona do use BPA-free materials in their trays and screens. And, of course, the safest material for any kind of food processing is always stainless steel.

How to Buy a Dehydrator

The first thing I always tell folks is to get the biggest dehydrator they can afford (assuming, of course, you have the space to store it nearby). For most people that is a 9 or 10-tray model, featuring 10-12 sq. ft. of drying area. Smaller 4 or 5 tray models, with less than half the drying area, are only recommended when you don’t have the space for anything bigger. You see, the prep time and drying time is just about the same whether you are doing 12 square feet or less than a third of that! So you might as well make two or three times as much of your favorite recipe at one time, actually saving you money in the long run. Dehydrated items can become a staple in a raw food diet, so making it easier and more efficient to dehydrate goes a long way in making it easier to adapt to a raw food lifestyle.

Other Considerations

Cleaning – All horizontal airflow dehydrators have removable trays. Some trays however are much large than the average kitchen sink, making them harder to clean. Measure you sink and check the size of the trays for the easiest cleaning. Even with over-size trays, however, cleaning isn’t much more difficult than with smaller trays.

Counter Space – try to buy a dehydrator that is easy to store in your kitchen. If you have to go all the way out to a garage to dig it out, chances are it will get less use. Of course, lots of people do all their dehydrating in the garage. Some models are particularly noisy, and when running all day can keep you up at night. In that case a garage is nice. More recent designs these days are a lot quieter, like the Tribest Sedona. However, the noise factor never bothered me personally and I prefer to just do everything in the kitchen. I bought one of those little rolling kitchen islands with a marble top online for a very reasonable price. It has a bottom shelf just the right size to store my dehydrator. Now all I have to do is put it up on the counter and it’s ready to use.

Slicing – If you don’t already have a vegetable mandolin you should get one when you buy your dehydrator. Unless you have the skills of a great chef, carving perfectly regular slices with a knife is going to be beyond your skill-set. A mandolin makes precise slices that will ultimately save hours of your time. For example, a 2mm veggie slice could dry 33%-50% faster than a 3mm slice! I always recommend getting the Teflon-type non-stick sheets with a dehydrator. However, it is possible to use unbleached parchment paper instead, which is very inexpensive online.

References

Lehrer, Jonah, Cognitive Benefits Of Chewing Gum, Wired Magazine. 11/29/2011
www.Excalibur.com

By Robert Ross, Jan. 2012 (Updated March, 2017)

Historic Study on Effects of Fertilizers Has Surprising Results

Robert Ross

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January 15, 2012

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Historic Study on Effects of Fertilizers Has Surprising Results

32-Year Field Study on Effects of Organic & Inorganic Fertilizers Has Surprising Results

I published this study over a decade ago because it is still highly significant even now There have been many studies on organic food from a variety of perspectives since then, but this is one of the best! I recently updated the articles to include some pertinent facts about GMO crops, which were not a factor at the time of this study.

A Note About GMO Crops

This fertilizer study was done before the advent of GMO’s (genetically modified organisms). Today, non-GMO and organic crops are even more important than ever! The difference between organic crops and GMO’s is far, far greater than the difference between non-GMO and organic crops — especially when it comes to fertilizers, the original point of this study.

You see, GMO crops are genetically engineered specifically to survive many times the application of chemicals like Monsanto Roundup (glyphosate) and 2,4-D. Normal plants would just die. Making GMO crops more resistant to toxic chemicals that would kill organic crops really only does one thing, regardless of the company hype — it sells more pesticides and herbicides. Some of Monsanto’s most profitable chemicals were originally chemical weapons in World War II and are so profitable that they STILL are selling them, but not to the military — to our farmers.

2,4-D was originally used as part of the infamous, Vietnam era chemical weapon, a defoliant called Agent Orange. 2,4-D has been linked to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, lowered sperm counts, liver disease, Parkinson’s disease and many other adverse effects, and is one of the largest sources of dioxins in our environment. Dioxins are highly toxic and build up in your body and the environment over time. Also, 2,4-D sticks around in the environment. It can actually drift through the air from where it is sprayed to a nearby organic farm — or be tracked inside your house by pets or children. In fact, the EPA has already detected 2,4-D in our water, including drinking water. It can also poison small animals that ingest it after eating grass contaminated with 2,4-D.

Yet despite the obvious health risks, in 2014 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved the combined use of 2,4-D and Monsanto’s Roundup (also known as glyphosate) is sprayed on GMO crops (Enlist soy and Enlist corn), engineered to be resistant to these toxins. Basically, its now completely “legal” for farmers to soak their fields with high concentrations of these toxic weed killers engineered to resist Roundup (glyphosate) and Enlist (2,4-D). The U.S. Department of Agriculture has estimated that by 2020 America’s farms could be spraying as much as 600% more 2,4-D on our crops!

Destroying Our Entire Food Delivery System

This practice is now actually destroying the genetic diversity of our crops. It is also destroying the soil, which is now no longer truly alive (with living bacterial organisms that have a lot to do with a plant’s nutritional uptake. This practice also creates new super weeds that cannot be killed easily, resulting in even more Roundup and glyphosate being sprayed by the poor, hapless farmers. This has gotten so out of hand that it can actually be more profitable today to be an organic farmer than to grow GMO crops at all — which were supposed to save the farmer with higher yields and cheaper farming methods. But that’s not at all how things turned out!

What actually is happening today is that GMO’s are destroying both our health and, ultimately, our entire food-delivery system — in the name of profit for the companies that engineer GMO’s. They pull every trick in the book to fool you and the rest of the world into believing short-term, heavily biased studies and outright lies.

Organic and non-GMO food are now the last defenses we have against this insanity. Please make a commitment to eat only fresh, raw, organic or non-GMO whole foods. You’ll soon discover that it’s both cheaper and healthier to eat when you consider all the real costs and the health consequences of a toxic GMO diet.

32-Year Field Study on Effects of Organic & Inorganic Fertilizers

In 1958, Bo Pettersson began an agricultural experiment that lasted for 32 years. The focus was primarily on aspects of crop quality, and the fertilizer application rates for the various treatments were adjusted to bring about comparable yields. Interestingly, though one of the goals was to get similar yields from both organic and conventional farming, there were some surprising results!

Research Farm

Crop yield increases were significantly higher with the organic treatments.
Though crude protein content of potatoes and wheat was lower in the organic treatments protein quality was higher.
Resistance to decomposition and store quality for potatoes were higher in organic treatments.
Wheat starch quality seemed to be higher.
The organic treatments resulted in a higher soil fertility and in crops with higher quality protein, a higher starch content and greater ability to tolerate stressful conditions and long-term storage vs. the inorganic treatments.
Crops produced in organic treatments showed a structure that has a higher “organizational level.

Long-Term Field Experiment in Sweden: Effects of Organic and Inorganic Fertilizers on Soil Fertility and Crop Quality

In 1958, Bo D. Pettersson in the Nordic research Circle for Biodynamic Farming in Järna, Sweden, began an agricultural field experiment that lasted until 1990, i.e. 32 years. The field experiment included eight different fertilizer treatments, each with a four-year crop rotation without repetitions: summer wheat, lover/grass mix, potatoes, beets. The focus was primarily on aspects of crop quality, and the fertilizer application rates for the various treatments were adjusted to bring about comparable yields. Two “daughter experiments” emerged from the K-experiment and were run in parallel with the mother project during 1971-1976 in Uppsala and 1971-1979 in Järna.

In these experiments a comparison was made between two systems, biodynamic farming and conventional farming, in which both fertilizer regimes and crop rotations were studied. One of the main objectives in the K-experiment, i.e. to obtain nearly the same yield over the experimental period in the organic-treatment variants and in the inorganic treatments has largely been achieved, but there were differences between crops. During the time between 1958 and 1990 the yield increased in all treatments in accordance with the overall trend in the Swedish agriculture, but the increase was highest in the organic treatments (65% in the biodynamic in comparison with 50% in the conventional). The effects of the different fertilizer treatments on product quality are in accordance with findings in the two “daughter experiments” which were based on the original K-experiment. Compared with the conventional treatments, the crude protein content of potatoes and wheat was lower in the organic treatments, but protein quality was higher (i.e. relatively pure protein and essential amino acids, lower amount of free amino acids). Resistance to decomposition and store quality for potatoes were higher in the organic treatments, and in wheat starch quality seemed to be higher.

The organic treatments resulted in a higher soil fertility capacity and in crops with higher quality protein, a higher starch content, and a greater ability to tolerate stressful conditions and long-term storage in comparison with the inorganic treatments. Furthermore, the crops produced in the organic treatments developed a structure that can be studied through a picture formation method (Crystallization with CuCl2). This has also been described as a higher organizational level which is evident in terms of both soil and crop formation as a result of the long-term effects of organic manure compared with conventional NPK-fertilizer. New experiments in Sweden and Finland have been started to study the effects of different organic treatments on farms. Preliminary results of these experiments confirm the described differences between organic and inorganic treatments, but indicate also that the effects of liquid organic manure on quality parameters are more similar to those of inorganic fertilizer.

Introduction

In 1958, Bo D Pettersson and the Scandinavian Research Circle in Järna, Sweden, began an agricultural field experiment to determine in what ways various types of fertilizers affect the soil and final quality of grain and vegetable products. Various quality parameters and quality-assessment methods were developed and tested during the experiment period which spanned 32 years (up to 1990), and several reports have been published (Pettersson, Reents & Wistinghausen, 1992).

Two “daughter experiments” emerged from the K-experiment and were run in parallel with the mother project during 1971-1976 in Uppsala and 1971-1979 in Järna (referred to as UJ-experiments in the following text). In these experiments a comparison was made between two systems, biodynamic farming and conventional farming, in which both fertilizer regimes and crop rotations were studied (Pettersson, 1982; Dlouhy, 1981). Before that, the influence of these systems on quality parameters for potatoes under different climatic and soil conditions also had been studied in different parts of Scandinavia (Pettersson, 1970).

Description of the K-experiment

The K experiment was located at 59° North, 17° East at an elevation of 10 m above sea level. The mean yearly precipitation was 550 mm, and the mean annual temperature was 6 degrees C, with 6-8 snow-free months per year. The soil was a silty loam with an intermediate humus content.

Experimental Layout: To ensure that the field experiment could be used for the plant quality assessments while providing the flexibility to support other experiments that had yet to to designed, a very broad basis was adopted. This scheme included eight different fertilizer treatments, each with a 4-fold crop rotation without repetitions. The size of each subplot was 36 m² gross, with a net harvestable area of 27 m².

The Crop Rotation: Within each fertilizer variant the following crops were rotated without interruption so that in any given year all four would be present: summer wheat (undersown with clover/grass), clover/grass mix, potatoes and beets.

Fertilization Scheme: To facilitate focusing primarily on aspects of crop quality, the fertilizer application rates for the various treatments were adjusted to bring about comparable yields. This applies to the variants 1,2,3,4,7 and 8; variant 5 was not fertilized at all (Tables 1 and 2):

Table 1. The fertilization program (application rates of N- tot, P and K in kg/ha/yr averaged for the years 1958-1990 in parentheses).
K1. Composted manure (82/38/76).: aged half a year with the addition of biodynamic
K2. Composted manure (82/38/76): same as in K1 with the exception that treatments with
K3. Raw manure (95/30/91): with horn and bone meal added to reach 1% contents.
K4. Raw manure + NPK (63/28/66): half the K3 manure rate; half the K6 NPK rate, resp.
K5. Control: unfertilized.
K6. Inorganic NPK (19/19/41)
K7. Inorganic NPK(59/36/81): twice the rate applied in K6.
K8. Inorganic NPK(114/36/81): as in K6 but 4 times the N rate and twice the P and K rates.

Table 2. Breakdown of the fertilization scheme within the rotation, in %.
K1, 2 & 3 Organic –40 60
K6, 7 & 8 P K –40 60 N 20 -40 40

Description of the UJ-experiment

In the UJ experiment conventional (A) and biodynamic (B) treatments were compared with each other in two crop rotations as described below for the experiment in Järna (table 3): Crop rotation 1 represented a rotation without animals, and crop rotation 2 represented a system with animals related to an organic farming system which under Nordic conditions is self-sufficient with fodder with 0.8 CU (cattle units)/ha (average 50 kg N/ha and year).

The field conditions were almost the same as those in the K-experiment. A split-split-plot design was used with three replications. All crops were grown each year. The soil was a silty loam well supplied with plant nutrients but with a low humus content. The weather was drier than normal for the region during the first years of the experiment period and had a strongly negative effect on the yields of the grain and ley.

During 1971-1976 a parallel project was carried out in Uppsala (called UJ-experiment Ultuna) with the same treatments as in Järna (for more details see Dlouhy, 1981). The soil was an intermediate clay, well supplied with plant nutrients and moderately rich in humus.

Table 3. Crop rotation and fertilization scheme in UJ Experiment in Järna 1971-1979.

Yield and soil fertility

Yield in the K-experiment. The summer wheat and beet yields were increased by fertilization, and a considerable difference was also found between the K1 (compost + B-D sprays) and K2 (compost without sprays) variants. Yields of clover/grass declined in response to fertilizer treatment and were highest in the organic variants. A decrease in the yield of the legume mix can be expected to result in a reduction in nitrogen fixation (Table 4). In the K5 variant that did not receive any fertilizer for 30 years, the yield of ley was on the same level as that in the other treatments, and also here, the yield tended to increase over the period, although the increase was not as pronounced.

Table 4. Average yields during 1958-1989 in dt/ha/yr for single crops

table4
In terms of their 32-year averages, the yields are all comparable with the exception of the control variant (K5) and excluding data from the conversion period for the organic treatments. All yields except for those of the unfertilized variant (K5) increased with successive rotation periods (figure 1). The figures indicate that there was a conversion period of about 8 years during which the yield level was lower in the organic treatments.

Figure 1. K-experiment 1958-1989. Yield, MJ/ha

Development of soil fertility.
Data on soil physical properties, soil chemistry and soil biology were collected after 19, 28 and 32 years in the K-experiment (Pettersson, Reents and Wistinghausen, 1992). The analysis of soil data shows that nearly all chemical (pH, P, K, Mg, C and N) (macronutrient availability was an exception) and biological parameters (respiration, DHA, urease, earthworms) assessed were improved by organic fertilization whereas no such improvements were observed following the application of mineral fertilizer. Similar results concerning soil parameters were obtained in the UJ-experiment (Pettersson, 1982). In the UJ-experiment at Järna, humus contents had increased significantly after 9 years (by more than 10 percent) in B2 compared with the recent value of 2.72 percent and the value of the conventional treatment of 2.74 percent (A2B2 P<0.001).

Mineralization capacity.
The mineralization capacity of the soil was studied in summer wheat after potatoes (the third year after ley) in the K-experiment. Net mineralization in the soil was estimated by measuring the mineral nitrogen content of soil samples taken in spring and at harvest and by determining the total nitrogen uptake of the spring wheat crop (Granstedt, 1992). The mean mineralization capacity during 1988-1990 was, on average, 95% higher (i.e. 106%, 146% and 33% higher) in the organically farmed treatments as compared with the treatments receiving commercial fertilizer. The higher mineralization capacity compensated completely for the absence of applied mineral nitrogen in the organically farmed treatment. In the organic manure system we built up a more stable and higher mineralization capacity compared with the commercially fertilized treatments.

Quality of potatoes in the K-experiment (1958-1989) and UJ-experiment (1971-1979) comparing biodynamic and conventional farming.
The main aims of the K-experiment were to study how product quality is influenced by the fertilization system and to develop quality-assessment methods. The K-experiment was designed with eight treatments and four crops each year but without replications. Variation in mean values was generally higher between years than between treatments, but the relation between treatments for each individual year was mostly the same for most of the response parameters. Still, it has been possible to compare the results of biodynamic and conventional treatments in the K-experiment with those from the above-described daughter projects. However, it should be kept in mind that the K-experiment was limited to comparing fertilization regimes. The UJ-experiments included a comparison between alternative and conventional farming systems with respect to crop rotation and pesticide use (Dlouhy,1981 and Pettersson, 1982.)

Potatoes
Quantitative parameters.

Tuber yield
The average tuber yield in the K-experiment was nearly the same in the organic and conventional treatments, whereas the yield was significantly lower in the unfertilized treatment (287 dt/ha). During years with higher precipitation, when conditions were more conducive for the mineralization of nitrogen in organic manure, organic treatments tended to outperform the conventional ones. In both UJ experiments, with shorter experiment periods, the yield was significantly lower (ca 20 percent) in the biodynamic treatments, partly owing to the higher yield losses caused by Phytophtora since pesticides were used in the conventionally fertilized treatments. This difference was partly compensated for by a better storability of the biodynamcially produced potatoes.

Dry matter content
There was a clear tendency for dry matter content to be higher in the biodynamic treatment than in the conventional one in both the K-experiment and in the two UJ-experiments. Dry matter content was significantly higher in both B1 and B2 compared with the conventionally fertilized systems A1 and A2.

Protein levels and protein quality
The level of crude protein was determined on the basis of Kjeldal-N, whereupon the pure protein was precipitated with CuSO4 and NaOH and expressed as per cent of the crude protein. In terms of crude levels of protein in percent of dry matter a clear gradient was found from low levels in the organically grown samples to high levels in the conventionally grown ones. The crude protein content was also significantly higher in the inorganic treatments in both UJ-experiments (figure 2), but the content of relatively pure protein was significantly higher in the biodynamic treatments than in the inorganic ones.

The content of the free amino acids was measured by titration with feromol according to Sörensen. In the K-experiment the contents of these low molecular-weight, non-protein nitrogen compounds were lower in the organic treatment K1 than in K8 in all 19 studied years and lower in K1 than in K7 in 13 of the 19 years during which this parameter was studied during the experiment period. The higher protein quality of the organically grown crops was confirmed by comparing the relative content of essential amino acids and the biological value of protein, expressed as an EAA-index value (Dlouhý, 1981; Pettersson, 1982).

Figure 2. Potatoes. Crude protein in percent of dry matter.
Physiological parameters.

Darkening of tissue and extracts
The enzymatic darkening of raw, exposed potato tissue was measured with a reflectance attachment on a photospectrometer (described by Pettersson 1982). The speed of darkening of potato-tissue extracts was measured photometrically daily for four days at 530 nm. Both methods are described by Pettersson and E. v. Wistinghausen (1979) and Pettersson (1982). In the K and UJ-experiments both methods were used for evaluating the browning of the potatoes. The darkening of extract was greater in K1 than in K8 in 18 of the studied 24 years and greater in K1 than in K7 in 17 of the years. The UJ-experiments revealed that discoloration was more pronounced and developed faster in the chemically-fertilized variants than in the organically fertilized ones, and the difference was significant (P<0.01 in the UJ-experiments).

Extract decomposition
In this particular test of the resistance against the enzymatic and bacterial decomposition in
water extract (Rd/Ro = the maximum decrease in the electrical resistance, in percent of the starting value in extract dissolution 1:10 during 4-5 days, according to Pettersson, 1982), decomposition values were generally lower for the organically grown variants than for the others (24 of 24 studied years in K1 compared with K8 but only in 15 of 24 years in K1 compared with the K7). Differences similar to those obtained between K1 and K8 were found in the comparison of conventional and biodynamic treatments in the UJ-experiments (P<0.01 in the UJ-experiments).

Storage losses
Storage tests were conducted harvesting in? April in 20-kg bags. The storage losses was measured in percent of the initial weight and included losses through respiration and damage caused by storage fungi, etc. In the K-experiment storage losses tended to be lower in the organic treatments than in the inorganic ones (9 of studied 11 years). This difference was even more pronounced in the UJ experiment at Järna and Uppsala (Figure 3) (P<0.05 and P<0.1).

Figure 3. Potatoes. Storage losses after 6-7 months in percent of original stored weight

Field survey of Phytophthora infestans
Frequencies of infection were significantly lower in treatments K1 and K2 (composted manure) and in K5 as compared with K8 ( high rate of NPK), and K3 and K4 (raw manure) over the 14year period during which this parameter was studied. In the UJ-experiments the conventional treatments were treated with fungicide, and the yield difference was highest during the years with high infection levels (4 years).

Pathogen infection with Phytophora infestans (studied only during 1966-1969)
Although the spread of values was great with this testing method, a similar trend in the results was, nonetheless, seen, with lower values (i.e. less in vitro infection) in the organically grown samples than in the conventionally grown ones.

Morphological methods. Morphology of stems
The number of horizontal stems did differ appreciably between treatments, although values tended to be somewhat lower in the organic variants than in the conventional ones (Pettersson, Brinton & v, Wistinghausen, 1979). This negative correlation indicates that a low number of horizontal stems corresponds with high product quality according to the index. The method is described by Pettersson (1970). In the UJ-experiment at Järna (where this method was also used) the number of side (horizontal) stems was significantly lower in the biodynamic
treatments.

Crystallization investigation
As with the foregoing results, these tests (Engqvist, 1970; Pettersson, 1982) revealed a similar trend, with organizational traits in the tissues being better in the organically grown samples than in the conventional ones. In the K-experiment, this was true for all studied years between 1966 and 1989.

Influence of previous crop on the quality of potatoes
The effects of ley and barley on quality parameters of succeeding crops differed in some respects. For example, potatoes following a ley tended to show a higher degree of extract dissolution and to have a higher nitrate content compared with potatoes following barley in the UJ-experiment. This type of farming-system effect was not possible to study in the K-experiment which was strictly a fertilization experiment.

Figure 4. Potatoes. K-experiment 1958-1989, UJ-experiment in Järna 1971-1979, UJ-experiment in Uppsala 1971-1976. Difference, in percent, between the biodynamic treatments and the conventional ones for parameters..

Wheat in the K- and UJ-experiments

Average yield
Average yield levels in K1 and K8 were nearly the same. For K2, in which no biodynamic field preparation was carried out, the yield level was significantly lower, and differences were highest during years with a low yield level. In the UJ-experiments, with shorter experimental periods, the yield levels were significantly lower in the biodynamic treatments.

Quality parameters
In wheat as well, the crude protein content was higher in the inorganic treatments in the K-experiment and in both UJ-experiments (Figure 5). However, the content of relatively pure protein was higher in the biodynamic treatments in the K-experiment and higher in the UJ-experiment at Järna (P<0.01 and P<0.1) That the protein quality was higher in the organic treatments was also confirmed by the index for the essential amino acids (EAA-index, Figure 5 a), which was significantly higher in the biodynamic manured systems during the years when it was measured in the UJ-experiment.

Figure 5 a. Index of essential amino acids in the UJ-experiments. Figure 5 b. Amylase activity in wheat in the UJ-experiments.

The resistance against extract dissolution
was also higher in the biodynamic treatments in these studies. In addition, starch quality seemed to be higher in the biodynamic treatments, measured in terms of falling number (in the K-experiment and the UJ-experiment in Järna) and as indicated by amylograms (figure 5 b). The differences, in percent, between the biodynamic treatments and the conventional ones for quantitative and qualitative parameters for wheat are illustrated in Figure 6.C

Figure 6. Wheat. K-experiment, 1958-1989, UJ-experiment in Järna, 1971-1979, UJ-experiment in Uppsala 1971-1976. Difference, in percent, between the biodynamic treatments (K1) and the conventional ones (K8) for quantitative and qualitative parameters for wheat.

Final discussion concerning the significance of the studied quality parameters.

Correlation between crude protein content and other parameters
In the UJ experiment at Järna significant correlations were observed between crude protein content and most of the studied parameters in both potatoes and wheat (Pettersson, 1982). For potatoes this parameter was correlated with dry matter content (negative, P<0.001), relatively pure protein (negative, P<0.01), EAA-index (negative, P<0.001), ascorbic acid content (negative, P<0.001), cooking quality (negative, P<0.01), taste quality (negative, P<0.001), free amino acids (positive, P<0.001), extract dissolution (positive, P<0.001) and darkening of extract (positive, P<0.001). For wheat, the correlations were with EAA-index (negative, P<0.01), extract dissolution (positive P<0.001) falling number (positive P<0.05), gluten content and baking tests (positive, P<0.01). It can thus be concluded that cereals with a high crude protein content, which is generally desired by the baking industry, tend to rank low in terms of biological and physiological quality parameters. Similarly potatoes with a high crude protein content tend to rank low in terms of biological and physiological quality parameters and taste.

Light and shade
The studied parameters were divided into three groups: chemical/biological, physiological and a third called morphological. Parameters falling into the last-mentioned group has been studied through a method based on observations of the morphology of stems in potatoes and a picture formation method (Crystallization with CuCl2). It was assumed that the lower quality of the crops, assessed in terms of these parameters studied here, in the conventionally fertilized systems is similar to what would have been found had the plants been grown under more shaded conditions. Likewise, the higher biological value of the protein and the higher values found for quality parameters are similar to what would have been expected had the plants been grown under full light. In the interpretation, the organic treatments are described as having the same effect as an increase in solar radiation, and likewise, the effects of NPK-treatments are analogous to those induced by an increase in shade (Pettersson, 1982).

“Organization level”
The better protein composition, with a lower content of free amino acids, and better storage properties were attributed to the higher organization level resulting from the organic and biodynamic fertilizing systems. The higher “organization level”, reflected in the higher biological value of the protein and lower content of free amino acids not used in protein synthesis, was correlated with better resistance against pests, less darkening, less extract dissolution and lower losses of potato during storage. Future research should be aimed at improving our understanding of the significance of these qualitative values in terms of their effects on the human health.

Further studies
Upon completion of the K-experiment, a new experiment was begun in both Sweden (1992) and Finland (1995) in which different manure systems were compared in connection with various types of crop rotations on organic farms. The aim is to gain a better understanding of the differences between composted, non-composted and liquid manure in terms of their effects on the parameters discussed here and to develop effective methods for regularly testing product quality. In addition, the biodynamic preparation treatments are being studied so that their effects can be predicted more reliably. Preliminary results from studies in potatoes in Finland indicate that the use of liquid manure, like mineral fertilizer, tends to decrease the biological value. The ultimate goal is to tailor the fertilizing regime to the soil, climate and crops in a way that offers both a good yield an a healthy product with a high nutrient value.

From Int’l Conference on Agricultural Production & Nutrition, Tufts Univ., Boston, MA, 1997 by:
1. Artur Granstedt, Agricultural Research Centre of Finland, Partala Research Station for Ecological Agriculture, FIN-51900 Juva, Finland
2. Lars Kjellenberg, Biodynamic Research Institute, Skilleby, S-153 00 Järna, Sweden

REFERENCES

Dlouhy, J. 1981. Alternativa odlingsformer – växtprodukters kvalitet vid konventionell och biodynamisk odling (Alternative forms of agriculture – quality of products from conventional and biodynamic growing. With English summary). Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Dep. of Plant Husbandry. Report 91. Uppsala.
Engqvist, M. 1970. Gestaltkräfte des Lebendigen. Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main.
Granstedt, A. 1992. The potential for Swedish farms to eliminate the use of artificial fertilizers. American Journal of Alternative Agriculture. Vol 6. Numb. 3, 122-131.
Granstedt, A. 1995. The mobilization and immobilization of soil nitrogen after green manure crops. I: Proceedings of the third international conference, Soil management in sustainable agriculture, 31 August – 4 September 1993. Wye College. University of London, 265-275.
Pettersson B.D. 1970. Verkan av växtplats, gödsling och tillväxtreglerande substanser på matpotatisens egenskaper. (Influence of growing locality, manure and growth regulating substances on the quality properties of potatoes Nordisk Forskningsring. Meddelande nr 23, Järna.
Pettersson, Brinton & v, Wistinghausen, E.v. 1979. Effects of organic and inorganic fertilizers on soils and crops. Results of a long term field experiment in Sweden. Nordisk Forskningsring, Meddelande Nr. 30. Järna.
Pettersson, B. D. 1982. Konventionell och biodynamisk odling. Jämf`rande försök mellan tvD odlingssystem. (Investigations within Conventional and Biodynamic Farming Systems. Summary in English). Nordisk forskningsring, Järna.
Pettersson, B. D., Reents, H. J. & Wistinghausen E.v. 1992. Düngung und Bodeneigenschaften
– Ergebnisse eines 32-jahrigen Feldversuches in Järna, Schweden.Nordisk Forskningsring, Meddelende nr 34. Järna.

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Non-GMO — The Front Line in the Battle to Save Your Food

The Battle to Avoid GMO Foods: Introducing Jeffrey Smith, Non-GMO Advocate

Robert Ross

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January 2, 2012

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The Battle to Avoid GMO Foods: Introducing Jeffrey Smith, Non-GMO Advocate

As a raw foodist, you should be more concerned about how to avoid GMO foods (Genetically Modified Organisms) than anyone else. Being a raw foodist requires that you maximize the purity, bio-availability and nutrient density of absolutely everything you consume, both foods and drinks. Anything less and it just won’t work – you’ll get hungry, cravings, and go on junk food binges … eventually building up a resentment for raw food and just giving up. I’ve not only seen it happen, it has happened to me. I just pick myself up and start again, like any other diet program.

However, when you eat nutritionally dense raw foods that don’t overload your immune system with toxic chemicals and foreign DNA it can’t digest, the opposite happens — you feel completely satisfied with simple, delicious, nutrient-dense meals, overcome your old food addictions, feel more energy and enjoy what you actual do choose to eat more than ever!

To avoid GMO foods is more important than ever. GMO’s are such a significant health threat these days that I’ve arranged to include a regular column on this website by my dear friend Jeffrey Smith, the world’s foremost anti-GMO advocate and founder of the Institute for Responsible Technology.

GMO Basics by Jeffrey Smith

A GMO (genetically modified organism) is the result of a laboratory process where genes from the DNA of one species are extracted and artificially forced into the genes of an unrelated plant or animal. The foreign genes may come from bacteria, viruses, insects, animals or even humans. Because this involves the transfer of genes, GMO’s are also known as “transgenic” organisms.

Today, its can be hard to avoid GMO foods. GMO’s can be found In most of the food you see at the supermarket, except for items actually labeled non-GMO or organic. First introduced into the food supply in the mid-1990s, GMO’s are now present in the majority of processed foods in the U.S. While they are banned in much of Europe and elsewhere, in America the FDA doesn’t even require the listing of GMO’s on labels.

The main traits that have been added to food with genetic modification are herbicide tolerance, the ability for plants produce their own pesticides and improved productivity. These new traits have no health benefits at all — only an economic benefit. In fact, the nutritional content of the GMO foods is hardly a concern at all.

Just try to avoid GMO foods with virtually all the commercialized GMO’s now in the U.S. — including most soy (93%), cotton (93%), canola (90%), corn (87%), sugar beets (95%), Hawaiian papaya (more than 50%), zucchini and yellow squash (small amount), and even tobacco (Quest brand). Products derived from the above crops include oils from all four, soy protein, soy lecithin, cornstarch, corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup among others. There are also many “invisible ingredients,” derived from GMO crops that are not obviously from corn or soy.

Genetically modified foods have been linked to toxic and allergic reactions, sick, sterile, and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ studied in lab animals. The effects on humans of consuming these new combinations of proteins produced in GMO’s are unknown and have not been studied.

Crops such as Bt cotton produce pesticides inside the plant. This kills or deters insects…. The plants themselves are toxic, and not just to insects. Farmers in India, who let their sheep graze on Bt cotton after the harvest saw thousands of sheep die! Comparative studies on the toxic residues in foods from such crops have not yet been done. Pollen from GM crops can contaminate nearby crops of the same type…. In fact, virtually all heritage varieties of corn in Mexico… have been found to have some contamination. The long-term effects on the environment could be disastrous.

Reasons to Avoid GMO’s by Jeffrey Smith

GMO’s are extremely unhealthy. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine urges doctors to prescribe non-GMO diets for all patients. They cite animal studies showing organ damage, gastrointestinal and immune system disorders, accelerated aging, and infertility. Human studies show how genetically modified (GMO) foods leave material behind inside us, such as glyphosate, possibly causing long-term problems. Then genes from GMO soy can find their way into the DNA of bacteria living inside us. For example, the toxic insecticide produced by GMO corn was found in the blood of pregnant women and their unborn fetuses. Numerous health problems increased after GMO’s were introduced in 1996. The percentage of Americans with three or more chronic illnesses jumped from 7% to 13% in just 9 years. Food allergies skyrocketed through the roof. Once rare disorders like autism, digestive problems, reproductive disorders and others are on rising. Groups like the AAEM tell us not to wait before we do something to protect ourselves and our children.
GMOs contaminate forever. GMO’s cross pollinate and their seeds can travel on the wind for many miles, often contaminating nearby organic and non-GMO farms — putting those farmers out of business. Worse, Monsanto may even try to sue those farmers for patent infringement! GMO pollution is ultimately more damaging and dangerous than any other environmental concern including global warming and nuclear waste, threatening the health of several future generations.
GMOs increase herbicide use. Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s popular Roundup weed killer, has now officially been added to California’s list of chemicals known to cause cancer (CA Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment). The listing is the latest legal setback for Monsanto which has been facing increased lawsuits over glyphosate since the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer said that it is “probably carcinogenic” in 2015. Listing glyphosate as a known carcinogen in California will require the chemical to have warning labels. Warnings would also be required if glyphosate is being sprayed at unsafe levels by landscapers, golf courses, orchards, vineyards and farms. Glyphosate producers have about a year to re-label products or remove them from shelves if further legal challenges are lost.
GMO crops are engineered to be “herbicide tolerant.” Monsanto’s Roundup Ready crops, for example, are genetically-engineered to survive extremely heavy applications of Roundup herbicide — which means Monsanto now sells 3 times more Roundup than before! However, overuse of Roundup has now produced “super weeds” resistant to the herbicide. This causes farmers to use even more toxic herbicides and even more heam to the environment. Monsanto’s GMO foods contain higher residues of Roundup linked with sterility, hormone disruption, birth defects, and cancer. Glyphosate, supposedly biodegradable in the environment, has also been found is blood test of most people around the world!
Genetic engineering creates dangerous side effects. By mixing genes from totally unrelated species, genetic engineering unleashes a host of unpredictable side effects. Moreover, irrespective of the type of genes that are inserted, the very process of creating a GM plant can result in massive collateral damage that produces new toxins, allergens, carcinogens, and nutritional deficiencies.
Government oversight is dangerously lax. Most of the health and environmental risks of GMO’s are ignored by the government. The reason for this is largely political. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for example, doesn’t require a single safety study, does not mandate labeling of GMO’s, and allows companies to put their GMO foods onto the market without even notifying the agency. Their justification was the claim that they had no information showing that GMO foods were substantially different. But this was a lie. Secret agency memos made public by a lawsuit show that the overwhelming consensus even among the FDA’s own scientists was that GMO’s can create unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects. They urged long-term safety studies. But the government was instructed to promote biotechnology respite the dangers.
The biotech industry uses “tobacco science” to claim product safety. Biotech companies like Monsanto told us that Agent Orange, PCB’s, and DDT were safe. They are now using the same type of superficial, rigged research to try and convince us that GMOs are safe. Independent scientists, however, have demonstrated without a doubt how industry-funded research is designed to avoid finding problems and how adverse findings are distorted or denied. Independent research and reporting is attacked and suppressed. Scientists who discover problems with GMO’s have been gagged, fired, threatened and denied funding. The journal Nature acknowledged that a “large block of scientists . . . denigrate research by other legitimate scientists in a knee-jerk, partisan, emotional way that is not helpful in advancing knowledge.” No major media are trying to expose the problems since they are often bought and paid for by Monsanto and Friends.
GMOs harm the environment. GMO crops and associated herbicides can harm birds, insects, amphibians, marine ecosystems, and soil organisms. They reduce bio-diversity, pollute water resources, and are unsustainable. For example, GMO crops are eliminating the habitat for monarch butterflies, whose populations have been cut down 50% in the US. Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide has been shown to cause birth defects in amphibians, embryonic deaths and endocrine disruptions and organ damage in animals even at very low doses. GMO canola has been found growing wild in several states, threatening to pass on its herbicide tolerant genes on to weeds.
GMOs do not increase yields, and work against feeding a hungry world. While sustainable non-GMO agriculture in developing countries is clearly resulting in yield increases of 79% and higher, GMO’s do not, on average, increase yields at all. This was evident in the Union of Concerned Scientists’ 2009 report Failure to Yield—the definitive study to date on GM crops and yield. The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) report, authored by more than 400 scientists and backed by 58 governments, stated that GMO crop yields were “highly variable” and in some cases, “yields declined.” The report noted, “Assessment of the technology lags behind its development, information is anecdotal and contradictory, and uncertainty about possible benefits and damage is unavoidable.” They determined that the current GMO’s have nothing to offer the goals of reducing hunger and poverty, improving nutrition, health and rural livelihoods, and facilitating social and environmental sustainability. On the contrary, GMO’s divert money and resources that would otherwise be spent on more safe, reliable, and appropriate technologies.
By avoiding GMOs, you contribute to the coming tipping point of consumer rejection, forcing them out of our food supply. Because GMO’s offer no consumer benefits, if even a small percentage of us start rejecting brands that contain them, GM ingredients will become a marketing liability. Food companies will kick them out. In Europe, for example, the tipping point was achieved in 1999, just after a high profile GMO safety scandal hit the papers and alerted citizens to the potential dangers. In the US, a consumer rebellion against GM bovine growth hormone has also reached a tipping point, kicked the cow drug out of dairy products by WalMart, Starbucks, Dannon, Yoplait, and most of America’s dairies. NOTE: As an additional motivation to avoid GMOs, you may wish to take a lesson from the animals. Eyewitness reports from around the world describe several situations where animals, when given a choice, avoid genetically modified food. These include cows, pigs, geese, elk, deer, raccoons, mice, rats, squirrels, chicken, and buffalo. We’re pretty sure the animals didn’t read the above 10 reasons.

The Campaign for Healthier Eating in America is designed to achieve a tipping point against GMO’s in the US. The number of non-GMO shoppers needed is probably just 5% of the population. The key is to educate consumers about the documented health dangers and provide a Non-GMO Shopping Guide to make avoiding GMO’s much easier. Please choose healthier non-GMO brands, tell others about GMO’s so they can do the same, and join the Non-GMO Tipping Point Netwooundup. Together we can quickly reclaim a healthier non-GMO food supply.

The world’s leading consumer advocate for non-GMO choices, Jeffrey M. Smith, is the creator of the world’s best selling books and videos on the dangers of genetically modified organisms (GMO’s). Jeffrey exposes how biotech companies mislead consumers, legislators and safety officials to put everyone’s health in peril. Jeffrey founded the Institute for Responsible Technology in 2003.

Also Read:

The Real Purpose of GMO’s — and It’s Not Feeding the World!

Learn How to Listen to Your Body: the Key to a Healthy Raw Food Diet

Robert Ross

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January 1, 2012

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Learn How to Listen to Your Body: the Key to a Healthy Raw Food Diet

A raw food diet sounds great to someone who just loves healthy food. It’s so alive, so pure, that it’s one of the best ways to get a wide variety of fresh, living nutrients — whether you choose to eat 100% raw or just 75% — as well as help with many modern diseases associated with the modern Standard American Diet (S.A.D.). But occasionally there are people that begin a raw food diet without learning how. When this happens, they’ll probably make some mistakes, triggering a cleansing reaction or “detox.” To avoid this try some of these suggestions instead.

Listen to Your Body – When food isn’t properly digested your body will say something about it! You may experience bloating, acne, fatigue, headaches and general malaise. To avoid all this just ease into your raw food lifestyle and listen to your digestion. Do NOT blindly listen so some raw food guru that says a raw food diet is the end all and be all — not even me!

Don’t Become Obsessive – Never forget that you won’t die from a little cooked food. My rule of thumb is that you are a Raw Foodist if just 75% of your diet is raw! At that level, your body can safely eliminate all the toxins in whatever cooked food you eat. Just figure out what works best for you, whether it’s low carb, cooked, raw, Paleo — or whatever your body seems to prefer. But remember to give yourself all the time your body may need to make a healthy transition before drawing any conclusions about what works best for you!

Not Getting Enough Varied Nutrition – Do not try to live off nothing but fruits, vegetables and greens right away. Though these are high in nutrition, they usually can’t give you everything you need — at least not right away. You see, your body has spent many decades adjusting to a diet of dead, cooked foods, and un-doing that can take some time. You may need several months, or even years for some people, to rehabilitate your entire digestive system so that you can efficiently digest real live food again. Right now, your body doesn’t know how to absorb all the extra enzymes and nutrients in live food. All your systems need time to adapt. So at first you’ll want to look for foods that are higher in calories and nutrients to prevent any potential health problems.

Diving in Too Carelessly – Your body doesn’t come with an on and off switch. Just starting a vegetarian or vegan diet requires some preparation. Raw food can be much more difficult for many people, causing them to cleanse so quickly that they feel sick and weak. The cleansing experience of a sudden 100% raw food diet is an extremely powerful detox for most people and not really the smartest way to start. Instead, ease into the raw food lifestyle by slowly reducing the cooked foods in your diet. I suggest shooting for 50-75% raw at first. If you count your between-meal snacks as one meal, you eat 4 meals a day. So to avoid an unexpected detox reaction, eat normal meals once or twice a day. Remember to avoid GMO foods (genetically modified) and eat as much organic food as possible.

Overdoing Fruit & Nuts – Fruits and nuts can provide a lot of calories for a raw foodist, The nuts provide plenty of protein and fat, but are hard to digest for many people. It’s actually best to soak all your nuts before eating them to activate the enzymes in the nuts, which will begin to break down the nutrients and make them more easily bio-available to your body.

Fruits are another story! Fruits have far too much sugar when transitioning to a raw food diet. Even though fruit sugar is fructose, you’ve been getting way too much fructose in your system for many years. The corporate food-delivery industry today adds tons of fructose to everything from desserts to soft drinks — and these corporations don’t want to put “sugar” on their labels. So I recommend that you avoid ALL fruit for awhile, at least until your body learns how to properly digest real food again — something most of us have forgotten how to do. For some people this can take several months or even years.

You may hear of some people that are “fruitarians,” eating nothing but fruit all day long and feeling great. But this is actually pretty rare. For most people, living off fruit alone is not ideal. If you love fruit and just have to eat some, stick to low-sugar fruits like lemons, limes, rhubarb, apricots, cranberries, raspberries, kiwi, guava, blackberries, strawberries, tangerines, nectarines and oranges.

Doing a Detox Intentionally – Going through a detox can actually help some people reach a new level of purification very quickly, but it’s not for everyone. Benefits include clearer sinuses, fast weight loss, clearer skin, more energy, more regular bowel movements, improved mental clarity, improved emotional stability and much more.

If you’re getting terrible headaches, just add some cooked grains or something to slow down the detox and make it easier for your body to adjust. YOU are in control of how fast you detox! Also, you can add other therapies to greatly enhance the detox and reduce any discomforts. Personally, i like to do dry skin brushing! Remember, your skin is the largest organ of elimination on your body!

Colonics & Enemas – Your colon is home to billions of microflora (bacteria). Besides forming stool, the beneficial bacteria living in you colon and digestive tract are important for proper nutrient absorption, maintaining pH balance, controlling hunger and counteracting any possible dangerous bacteria. recommend doing enemas and/or colonics to cleanse your colon during your transition to a raw food lifestyle, particularly if you want to eventually become 100% raw.

The goal of a good colon cleanse — whether an enema or a colonic — is to help your digestive system do its job in a way that won’t interfere with your normal bowel functions. Poor gut health, allergies, inflammation, pesticides, GMOs and other chemicals within the digestive system cause many people to struggle with having their bowel movements. Colon cleanses aren’t needed by everyone but some people can really benefit from help eliminating waste, bacterial matter and toxic material that’s been stored in their bodies for years.

Also Read:

Toxic Soup: How the Chemistry of Cooking is Making You Sick

Introduction to Juicing for the Raw Food Lifestyle

Robert Ross

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January 1, 2012

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Introduction to Juicing for the Raw Food Lifestyle

Juicing is a one of the easiest yet most powerful things you can use to make your raw food lifestyle more successful – and improve your overall health and wellness. Usually I juice every day and drink between one or two quarts of mostly-green juice every day. Some people prefer to have one regular juice day every week, also called a juice ‘feast’ or juice fast day.

By removing all the hard-to-digest fiber from your nutrient-rich veggies, juicing improves your absorption of all the important nutrients. This is particularly important for people beginning a raw food lifestyle because most of us have poor digestion and incomplete absorption after decades of eating cooked and processed foods. Juicing, using only a slow-speed masticating juicing to protect t he nutrients, breaks down the cell walls of your veggies releasing the nutrition so you can absorb it like a sponge.

How Much to Drink

I usually recommend at least 16 ounces of juice daily. Most days I fill up a 16 oz. insulated sports canister and drink it throughout the day. When I am doing a juice ‘feast’ I double that, drinking it throughout the day, but mostly around meal times or whenever I am feeling hungry.

Making this much juice every day might seem tedious, but I have a secret. First, I don’t actually make juice every single day. I actually juice every two or three days and make enough for the next two or three days, which I then store in a tightly sealed, insulated container in the fridge. If you do this a lot you may want to get one of those food saver appliances that sucks the air out of a ball-jar style container, but I have found that my juice lasts up to 3 days just fine without that – though as always, the sooner you drink it the better!

In order to do this you MUST you only a high quality masticating juicer that produces little oxidation hence has a high juice quality and juice stability. These include single-auger juicers like those made by Samson, Hurom, Omega and Kuvings and twin-gear models like the Green Power, Green Star and Super Angel.

If you are new to juicing I recommend a single-auger juicer. Avoid low-cost, high-speed centrifugal juicers entirely (like the Juiceman or Jack LaLanne models) because they break easily, produce low quality juice, and are very loud. Most importantly, they have the lowest juice quality because they fling tiny droplets of juice through the air to separate it from the pulp, and this thoroughly oxidizes all the juice before it even reaches the glass! Oxidation is the enemy of nutrition, enzymes and health in general. So plan on spending between $200-300 for a good single-auger juicer.

The next step up is a vertical slow speed juicer, starting around $400. These are great for smaller counters since they take less space. While they do a good job of juicing, they are not multipurpose kitchen tools like some other juicers, i.e., they just make juice. That’s it!

As your juicing expertise grows you may want to trade up to a twin-gear juicer, which start around $500. These are the best juicer when you talk about juicing efficiency (more juice from the same veggies), juice quality (more nutritional density from the same veggies), juice stability (longer lasting in the fridge) and ease of use or cleaning. Beyond that there is something called the juice press, but these are thousands of dollars, are very messy and tedious to use or clean for very little additional benefit compared to the best twin-gear model from Super Angel. In fact, I have sold many Super Angel juicers to people who own hydraulic juicers that just cannot stand them any more!

Once you get used to your new juicer and start enjoying all the benefits, you’ll be surprised to discover that it’s much easier than you thought it would be. In fact, it can be a lot of fun! After many years, I’ve got my juicing down to a routine that usually takes less than 15 minutes including clean up. Since I only juice every two or three days, I only have to clean up every two or three days, too. I generally just rinse all t he juicer components under hot water and toss them in the dish rack. I clean and brush the juicing gears and juicing screen more thoroughly. One or twice a week I scrub everything more thoroughly using soapy water.

Though most of the nutrients are removed from the pulp by your juicer, it is still a valuable resource. I mix my pulp with my dog’s food – and he loves it! It makes a great topping for almost anything, especially salads. You can also compost it.

Introduction to Juicing for Healing Disease

When I first went to the Optimum Health Institute in San Diego (OHI) as a guest for three weeks, mostly to accompany my elderly mother, I was the poster boy in my neighborhood for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFIDS). After years of trying all kinds of alternative therapies, from Chinese medicine to homeopathy, Tai Chi, acupuncture and much more, I had some limited success and actually thought at the time I was cured since I no longer had to sleep all day long – and could actually stay awake most of a day. But in reality I had forgotten what normal felt like.

The program at OHI begins with a 3-day juice “feast” or fast. After three days on simple, basic juices I suddenly felt more energy than I had in years and years. I realized then that not feeling noticeably “sick” was not the same thing as being wonderfully alive and bursting with more energy than I knew what to do with.

Before that first juice feast I was walking around like a zombie that didn’t know it was dead. If you reached out to shake my hand and introduce yourself, I would stick a limp arm out and offer a weak hello in reply. But after the juice fast I was genuinely excited to meet people, and thrilled to make new friends. I walked around with a perpetual smile on my face the whole time I was there and made lots of new friends.

In fact, I was so impressed by the miraculous transformation in my life that a few months later I returned to OHI as a volunteer, agreeing to work there for 3 months in exchange for room and board. I ended up staying there for six years, losing over 75 lbs. and changing my life forever.

The OHI program is a comprehensive, life-altering program of juicing vegetables and wheatgrass combined with detoxification and an intense education in nutrition, physiology and other ltd topics – but juicing is the core nutritionally!

My experience after the first few days is not the exception! In fact, my mother, who was in her 70’s and extremely overweight at the time, had a similar experience. On the first day we had to change her room to a more expensive room closer to the main buildings because she couldn’t even walk up a flight of stairs. After the first week she was a different woman, walking all over the place, up and down stairs, with a glow I hadn’t seen in decades.

Realistically, though you may experience intense highs at first, you can also experience uncomfortable lows associated with detoxifying your body. So it is important when you undertake a any juicing program or any juice feast longer than a day or so to support your body’s excretory system in removing released toxins with colon-cleansing techniques such as colonic irrigation or even just a daily enema. The colon is one of the most important organs for eliminating waste during detox and if no food is moving through it you need to give it some help. I also recommend not to attempt juice feasting for more than three days without professional guidance like we had at OHI. That much intense fasting is usually not required to achieve amazing results and get quite uncomfortable and even dangerous for some people.

Real, lasting transformational results, of course, only come after months or even years of making raw food part of your lifestyle. At first you may only be half raw, but you can ad to that bit by bit, cleansing and educating yourself along the way until months later you are 75% raw, then 80%, and so on. The more raw food you eat the faster your body can eliminate backed up toxins.

In my experience, if you eat at least 75% or more of your diet as raw, live food, in about three months you’ll start to see dramatic improvements in your health. That’s because it takes that long for your body to replace most of it’s red blood cells. So don’t expect juicing to be a magic bullet or overnight miracle in every case.

You’ll probably notice some immediate benefits like Mom and me, but you will also go through ups and downs in your personal process of growth and transformation. Even living at a raw food health center, it took me 6 years to become 100% raw…and that only lasted a few years before moving to another state caused new challenges and issues in my life. One thing is certain, I think, and that is the ups as well as the downs are much easier to enjoy as a raw foodist, just like riding a roller coaster and laughing all the way.

Best Vegetables for Juicing

The most powerful ingredients for your juice are the dark green leafy vegetables. These are the most alkaline-forming vegetables, but they don’t taste as good as the veggies we are typically used to in the market. So to compensate for that I add just one or two carrots, a lemon or an apple. I recommend not making the juice any sweeter than that because it will exacerbate any problems your body has with sugar metabolism.

Even if you aren’t diagnosed with a sugar problem, you probably have borderline, undiagnosed sugar issues results from sugar being added to everything in your cooked, processed diet for your whole life. So limit your use of sweet veggies like carrots and beets, and try to eliminate most fruit at least until your body rehabilitates it’s ability to properly metabolize sugars. Avoid fruit and sweet veggies entirely if you have candida, hypoglycemia, insulin resistance, diabetes, or cancer.

Juicing Tips

Start juicing the vegetables that you already enjoy eating whole so you won’t be overwhelmed with strange flavors right away – you should enjoy your juice!
Never juice orange or grapefruits peels since they contain toxic oils.
Rotate vegetables and try new recipes regularly to get a variety for best nutrition and to avoid developing sensitivities or allergies from too much of the same thing constantly.

NOTE: Unless you are doing a controlled juice fast or detoxification program, please don’t use juice as a meal replacement. Juice has very little protein and almost no fat so it cannot replace a nutritious meal. It is really just a powerful nutritional supplement or boost to your diet, ideally used in addition to regular meals.

My favorite veggies for juicing …
(organic and washed thoroughly, of course)

Dark green leafy veggies like collard greens, Swiss chard and kale
Celery
Parsley (high in vitamin C, bioflavanoids, iron, minerals and chlorophyll)
Cucumbers (with skin)
Leftover veggies in the fridge (broccoli, cauliflower, sprouts, whatever)
Carrots (use sparingly due to high sugar content)
Ginger root, for its anti-inflammatory properties
Lemons (high in vitamin C & bioflavanoids.

My Favorite Juicing Recipes

Mock V-8 Juice

1/4 cup spring water
2 tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
1 handful spinach
1/4 sweet onion
1-2 celery stalks
2 tsp. lemon juice
1-2 shots hot sauce to taste

Cucumber Celery Cooler

4 medium carrots, greens removed
1/4 medium cucumber, peeled
1 stalk celery
1 apple, sliced
1/2 lemon, peeled (optional)

Mock Tuna Salad Using Juicer Pulp

carrot or vegetable pulp
raw mayonnaise (see link below)
whatever else you’d like (celery, onions, etc.)

Add raw mayonnaise to your juicer pulp. Add other veggies to taste (scallions, celery, etc.).
Add spices to taste. Add to salad dressings, use on greens, etc.

My dog, Buddy, also LOVES the pulp from my juicer, which I regularly share with him!

Click here for more juicing recipes

Also Read:

How to Choose a Juicer for Raw Foodists!

The Devastating European e.coli Super Bug of 2011 was Bioengineered

Robert Ross

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January 1, 2012

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The Devastating European e.coli Super Bug of 2011 was Bioengineered

The thing about tyrants and bullies is that they live in a fear-based reality. Fear is all they know – because they themselves are afraid — afraid of losing control, bad quarterly profits, going bankrupt, losing a job, bad press — and they’re deathly afraid of a healthy, empowered people — you!

Mad Scientist or Extraterrestrial Invader?

A few years ago, while a super-resistant e.coli outbreak was straining hospital resources in Germany, nobody in the mainstream media seemed concerned about where this new e.coli superbug suddenly came from. The German e.coli was from the 0104 strain that was almost never resistant to antibiotics before. What was so strange about this? I’m glad you asked.

You see, it isn’t easy for a bacteria to become a super-bug overnight. It happens slowly, relatively speaking, as the bacteria are exposed to more and more different antibiotics over time. Usually you’ll see a strain resistant to one or two antibiotics first. Then, as different antibiotics must be used to treat the infection, the e.coli eventually becomes exposed to other antibiotics becoming resistant to them, as well. But not this time. This new German strain magically became resistant to every antibiotic that can be used against it overnight!

How could this happen in nature? Well, it can’t!

In studying the DNA of the German e.coli it was discovered that nature didn’t do it — a genetic engineer did! Or maybe it was extraterrestrials? Germany’s Robert Koch Institute analyzed the DNA of the O104 e.coli and discovered that it is resistant to some of the most widely used antibiotics by hospitals, including:

penicillin
tetracycline
nalidixic acid
trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazol
cephalosporins (ceftazidime, cefuroxime, cefotaxime)
amoxicillin / clavulanic acid
piperacillin-sulbactam
piperacillin-tazobactam

This e.coli has two other unusual features that shouldn’t have been there in a common e.coli strain like 0104 — dangerous TEM-1 and CTX-M-15 genes. The rare e.coli strains normally found with these genes are so virulent that patients quickly die from organ failure. The only way this could have happened was by exposing this e.coli to all these antibiotics one by one over time, carefully selecting the resistant bacteria and reproducing them. Though resistance to a one antibiotic is common, this repeated, continuous exposure to so many antibiotics is virtually impossible in nature. That leaves only one possible source – that nefarious genetic engineering lab we’ve all seen in a grade-B science fiction movie — like this:

Scene 1. Create a problem — a deadly strain of E. coli in our food.

Scene 2. Create a huge public outcry of people so terrified that they’re even afraid to eat fresh organic food!

Scene 3. In response to that, enact even more controls over the global food supply and require that all fresh food is irradiated or sprayed.

Scene 4. Legislate even more control over fresh vegetables, raw sprouts, raw milk and anything else that could be blamed for this deadly outbreak!

Maybe it was extraterrestrials?

Though this scenario may be hard to believe, unfortunately it isn’t merely bad science fiction. This strain of e.coli actually had to be intentionally exposed to eight major types of antibiotics again and again before it just suddenly showed up in the food supply overnight. In nature, spontaneous mutations on a scale like this are virtually unknown. This had to be intentional. The only question left is who did it — mad scientists or extraterrestrials?

To answer that you first have to ask why would someone do such a horrible thing? Well, if they are extraterrestrials they may be preparing for an invasion. However, on a personal note, I trust extraterrestrials more than the mad scientists working for agribusiness companies like MonSatan. What is it that mad scientists in B-movies always want? To take over the world, of course! It would be funny, as well grade-B sci fi, if it wasn’t so close to the truth!

Consider the scientists at the #1 GMO company in the world today, which I like to call MonSatan. They have a problem — most of the world wants nothing to do with their unlabeled, unhealthy GMO foods. But MonSantan is heavily invested in the future of GMO’s so what can they do? Maybe they’ll try to make you more afraid of organic food than you are of GMO’s!

Control the food supply and you control the profits. It’s what I call the “business-as-usual-conspiracy.” You saw it in action when the FDA demolished farm freedom in America by passing the “Food Safety Modernization Act” using consumer fear following several e.coli outbreaks in the U.S. When people are afraid it’s not that hard to get them to accept almost anything.

Raw Food Defense Against MonSatan and their Super-Bug Minions!

When you transform your health with a raw food based lifestyle, you eventually begin to lift yourself out of a reactive, knee-jerk, fear-based paradigm. Then you discover a self- actualized, empowered and healthier life based on compassion, hope and glowing health rather than fear and dis-ease. You’ll enjoy a renewed immune system as well as natural plant remedies like colloidal silver, garlic, ginger, onions and other herbs that help empower your innate immunity to all dis-ease. When this happens, Monsatan’s minions will fear YOU!

Nearly all the “diseases of civilization” we have today are caused by e.coli and other diseases can be easily avoided with a raw, nutritionally dense, organic diet and lifestyle that rebuilds your body’s own defenses against all disease. It’s can start for you right here, right now — just make a commitment to start eating more natural, organic, alkaline-forming raw foods and drinking more high-pH alkaline mineral water. Do it today!

Also Read:

Non-GMO — The Front Line in the Battle to Save Your Food

Make Your Own Alkaline Ionized Water Right at Home

Robert Ross

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January 16, 2011

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Make Your Own Alkaline Ionized Water Right at Home

There are several ways to make alkaline ionized water. You could use a little baking soda or just add lemon juice to water and alkalize it that way. Of course, lemon juice is acidic — but when you actually drink it you are “alkalizing” your body. You see, when people talk about aid and alkaline balance with water, they are actually using short-hand. What they really mean is “alkaline-forming” and “acid-forming” — terms to how the body responds to what you are eating or drinking. Many fruits are acidic, like lemons, and “alkaline-forming” in your body. But remember, this home-brew system doesn’t filter your water at all…it just alkalizes it.

A water ionizer is a home appliance that can raise the pH of drinking water by using electrolysis to separate the incoming water stream into acidic and alkaline components. There are several scientific studies which show that drinking alkaline ionized water has many health benefits. See my other posts on alkaline water for some references.

For pure, clean healthy water you need to use a filter system before using this home brew ionizer, like the Berkey water filter system. Berkey makes some the most powerful filtering systems available. The filters provide reliable high quality quality water, removing viruses, pathogenis, cparasites, and dangerous chemicals.

Commercial alkaline ionized water systems can cost from under $1,000 to over $4,000, yet it’s quite easy to build your own basic system for nearly the same end results and for much less money. However, it will require a bit of time and effort on your part. Building your own basic water ionizer will let enjoy many of the benefits of the more expensive models. And they make fun, educational projects for a science fair or school project. Difficulty: Moderately Challenging.

Things You’ll Need:

Two 1-gallon plastic storage containers (BPA-Free plastic)
One 2-inch PVC pipe
Electrical wire (NSF Certified Medical Grade Titanium)*
Piece of chamois cloth or other organic fiber cloth slightly larger than PVC pipe for a membrane
12V or 24V power adapter
Two crocodile clips
Two 0.5-inch by 0.75-inch pieces of Platinum Coated Medical Grade Titanium to use as electrodes (NSF Certified)*

Step 1: Set up the 2 1-gallon plastic containers next to each other and cut a 2-inch hole on the side of each one so that they line up and face each other.
Step 2: Insert the chamois cloth or membrane into the PVC pipe so that it fills the entire diameter of the pipe, like a wad or ball, and insert the pipe into the 2 holes you cut out of the plastic containers.
Step 3: Attach the titanium electrodes to some electrical wire.
Step 4: Attach the alligator clips to the 12V or 24V power system and to the wire that is running to the titanium electrodes.
Step 5: Place a titanium electrode in each 1-gallon plastic container, and make sure the contact between the alligator clips and the wire running to the electrodes remain out of the water.
Step 6: Fill the containers with water from your faucet and turn on the power adapter. This initiates the ionizing process.
Step 7: Wait at least 2 hours and watch as the water separates into the 2 containers. The water in one container will turn brown and murky while the water in the other container will be clear and clean. Once the ionizing process is complete (up to 12 hours), the brown water is the acidic water and the clear water is the alkaline water.

NOTES:

A home-made ionizer system takes much longer to make alkaline ionized water than commercial systems since you use much smaller electrodes and less power. Commercial alkaline ionized water devices make the water instantly on demand.
The chamois cloth inside the PCV pipe may get moldy or need replacement. Remove the membrane, squeeze it out, and let it dry between use, or just soak it in acid water. If the ionizer is used daily mold probably won’t grow. Remember to use organic unbleached natural fibers.

Remember, this is moderately challenging project and exposes you to electrical current and water. Be careful and know exactly what you’re doing before you build.

* Please use only medical grade platinum plates titanium electrodes. Other materials, like stainless steel, will break down and leach into the water making it impure. ASTM-F67 Titanium is recommended.

Raw Food & Liberty – The Battle for Control of What You Think

Food
Opinion

Robert Ross

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July 4, 2010

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Raw Food & Liberty – The Battle for Control of What You Think

Raw Food & Liberty: The legal battle to control what you eat … and think!

On the the 4th of July in America we remember one of the world’s greatest struggles for true freedom and liberty. The thing to remember at this special time is that our founding fathers sacrificed their wealth and often their lives for what we called “natural rights.” Natural rights only came into existence, for the first time in human history, when our American forefathers were willing to fight to the death to claim them.

Before we fought for our liberty, the entire world at best enjoyed only “civil rights,” or rights granted to them by the government or king, i.e., a privilege. The Colonies, which became America, started with a King, who gave us a lot of freedom to express ourselves as long as we behaved according to his rules. But the King didn’t honor his deal with his subjects in America. So after years of making all the appropriate legal arguments under international law, our Founders went to war to claim and defend our “natural rights.” The Founders hoped that this victory would be handed down to their posterity, essentially saying, “here are your rights — keep them if you can.”

Thomas Jefferson famously said that when we stated, “the tree of Liberty needs to be replenished occasionally with the blood of tyrants and patriots.” We must be willing to fight to protect our natural rights!

The Color of Law

If you are into health and nutrition this is very important to understand. Under “color of law,” which means that it looks like law but really isn’t, we may actually lose our access to real, organic, healthy food! Instead of real food we may find ourselves left with just “the color of food.” These food-like products may look like food but have little useful nutrition. Even worse, they’re often very toxic , loaded with foreign DNA (GMO’s) and bad for our health.

Genetically modified (GMO) foods are losing ground in most countries today. but many politicians are still financed by Monsanto & Friends and pushing for more and more control of their market. They want to protect their GMO technology while created new technologies that may even replace GMOs some day with things like nanotechnology. At the same time they are pushing to get control of vitamins, natural herbs and supplements. They even want to make vaccines mandatory — even though the evidence is clear that many vaccines are both ineffective and contain toxins known to cause serious health problems like autism or Alzheimer’s.

Genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) are created in laboratories by inserting genes from one species into the DNA sequence of another to create new life forms designed for agricultural purposes (survive more pesticides, grow faster grow in depleted soil, etc.).

Nanotechnology is used to create new foods by breaking matter down into microscopic nanoparticles programmed for specific tasks (mimicking the flavor and texture of familiar foods, etc.).

While these two genetic manipulation technologies have been around in laboratories for decades, they have never been proven to be safe for either people or the environment.

If we do not take a stand for raw food & liberty now, organic food could effectively be gone forever — or priced out of the range of average consumers. Without fresh, non-GMO, organic food you cannot be truly healthy! Period!

And that is their real goal! You see, they cannot control a healthy, awake and aware population that takes responsibility for itself — and that’s YOU!

Legal Principles of Control

Our system of “education” could teach this understanding to everyone in high school, but we somehow miraculously manage to ignore it. Meanwhile, the food pyramid charts use din most schools are provided as a “public service” to our schools by the diary industry!

The first legal concept is that “silence is an admission of acceptance or guilt.” Second, “if you do not defend your rights they are deemed to have been waived.”

In other words, if you let them get away with all this nonsense then you have agreed to it, even if through ignorance. You see, legally ignorance is no excuse since it is your responsibility to educate yourself about your rights if you actually want them.

A basic understanding of law and legal principles should be part of every high school education. Conspicuously, it is absent. Schools are not required to teach your kids anything at all about the law or your rights. But legally it is your responsibility to learn about your right and teach them to your kids — if you want to keep them. Kind of screwed up if you ask me, but this is called Personal Responsibility and the only one that can be responsible is YOU.

You must actually WANT freedom in order to be truly free! You do NOT get your human, God-given, natural rights merely because you exist, even though you are born with them, because if you don’t actually CHOOSE to learn about them and defend them you have essentially “volunteered” to give them up! That’s why every single printed document from the IRS reminds you that filing your taxes is a form of “Voluntary Compliance.” You can be sure that if the IRS wasn’t LEGALLY REQUIRED to use the word “voluntary,” they wouldn’t come anywhere near that word!

In the early 20th century education was considered so important that the very first thing that “socialists” did in those days was to co-opt the teaching profession. Today, almost all schools, universities and teachers are almost entirely “progressive,” i.e., socialist. Today, these socialist-minded folks control almost everything you and your kids learn in our educational system, as well as the major media. They actually control what you think … unless you wrest control away from them and start thinking for yourself again. And it all starts with cleansing and purifying what you eat!

He who controls the definitions wins!

The first thing the socialist/progressive politicians did was take control over some essential legal definitions. That’s the “double-speak” George Orwell tried to warn us about in his prophetic novel, 1984. In fact, “1984” already exists, particularly throughout the U.S. Statutes.

You see, a statute often redefines a word so that the legal meaning is exactly the opposite of what you think it means, or its “conversational” meaning! This control of definitions starts in public schools — where they also redefined the word “socialism,” so that now the word “democracy” means the same thing. Of course, America was never a democracy — it is a Constitutional Republic (very different legally).

In the medical field “they” routinely define imbalances caused by poor nutrition as “diseases,” actually giving them proprietary names and creating highly profitable new drugs to treat the relatively minor symptoms of their new diseases with side effects generally worse than the symptoms they are designed to treat.

Death has now been redefined, too! Some drugs routinely list death as a “side effect!” In the same way, most Americans today have voluntarily agreed to waive their natural rights as an American or citizen of a State, choosing instead to become federal citizens, or “U.S. Persons,” inadvertently giving up any legal claim to their “constitutional rights” as citizens of a sovereign State. Now these U.S. Citizens or Persons only have the “civil rights” granted to them by “civil” authorities like the Federal Government.

Briefly, here is a summary of what happened — the 14th Amendment created a new class of citizenship called “United States citizen” or “U.S. Person.” There are 3 legal definitions of the United United States — only one of which refers to the Federal government (Washington, DC and other federal territories), as well as several legal definitions for a “Person.”

We think a “person” is a human being, so it should be synonymous with “people.” However that is sadly wrong! It is case where the legal definition is different from the conversational meaning in a way purposely intended to confuse you.

You are actually NOT a “person,” i.e., a legal identity assigned to you but not referring at all to your actual humanity. That is why a corporation or a car can legally also be a legal “person.” “Person” is a “term of art” often used in statutes and regulations to make it look like they include you when in fact they do not.

So, a “U.S. Person” is subject to the jurisdiction of the federal government — not a State. And YOU are legally “presumed” to be a U.S. citizen or person. A “Citizen of the United States of America” (American Citizen), however, lives in one of the 50 sovereign States and has inalienable rights secured by their State and national constitutions.

A “Person” is a legal fiction subject to the jurisdiction of the federal government. That is why you don’t even have to be a “human being” to be called a Person under the law. In fact, corporations and other artificial entities are also legally called Persons. You see, the word “Person” is actually derived from the Latin word “persona” — originally meaning “mask.” In the ancient world, real people (actors) actually wore a mask to represent their character in the play. So the word originally referred to a character wearing a mask in a play. In time it came to mean any artificial person under law, like a corporation. Today, it also refers to the artificial, “corporate” identity under law that actually means YOU, but not the real YOU — your corporate “persona” or U.S Person. What you really want to be is a Citizen of the United State of America, but most people have waived that status voluntarily — without ever knowing it.

If you don’t realize that legal definitions are not the same as what words mean in an ordinary conversation, than it is easy to be fooled by the 14th Amendment, believing that “civil rights” are the same as your God-given natural rights. When you do that you have volunteered into Federal jurisdiction and now the Constitution of the United States legally no longer applies to you. You are a U.S. Person governed by federal statutes and regulations — not the Constitution.

Fortunately, We the People are starting to wake up and fight to restore our “natural rights” legally. A big part of this for many people is choosing to enjoy a healthier, more conscious way of life! For those like me that starts with a live, raw food lifestyle.

Opinion by Robert Ross

Also Read:

Equality, Freedom & Raw Food — Your Natural Rights!