Another good reason to eat your vegetables!

“The overuse of antibiotics in farming may have significant health consequences for consumers, according to testimony from the Food and Drug Administration. Now lawmakers are looking to curb the use of antibiotics in raising livestock, a move that puts them at odds with agribusiness interests.”

via FDA Calls Antibiotic Use In Farming ‘A Serious Public Health Threat,’ GOP Ignores Mounting Evidence.

Overuse of the antibiotics helps create antibiotic-resistant strains of diseases.

The audit “shows clearly the need for quick action by Congress to place some reasonable limits on the use of antibiotics in farm animals,” says Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., who has more than 100 co-sponsors on her bill to ban seven types of antibiotics from being used indiscriminately in animal feed.

via Beef not tested for chemicals, audit says.

“From the end of June through the beginning of October, we’re harvesting once a week for our office delivery, and sometimes we harvest twice a week,” said Liz Morris Otto, who owns the “Dude Ranch” land.

Those who work regularly on the crop get first pick, but every employee has access.

“People can just take a bag of lettuce that was cut just that day and take it home and it tastes better and it doesn’t cost them money,” Haberman said.

http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Across_the_US_employer-sponsored_gardens_grow_999.html

Excellent news sent our way by our webmaster, Alex Parkinson, a confirmed Vegan: “A global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger, fuel poverty and the worst impacts of climate change, a UN report said today.

Agriculture, particularly meat and dairy products, accounts for 70% of global freshwater consumption, 38% of the total land use and 19% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions…”

via UN urges global move to meat and dairy-free diet | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

Community Celebration
Sunday, May 30, 2010
4:00pm-6:00pm
Join us even if you didn’t do the Challenge!
Everyone is eligible for the many door prizes!

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
4225 NW 34 Street, Gainesville

Blue Oven Kitchens

Gainesville Farm Fresh
Wainwright Dairy                                           Glades Ridge
Melrose Herb Garden                                     Florida Fresh Beef
Sweetwater Organic Coffee Roasters               Florida Organic Growers
Junselle’s Gourmet Ingredient Mix                   Swallowtail Farm
Russ and Peg Hall                                         Hogtown HomeGrown

Family Kickball Game at 4:30pm

Hogtown HomeGrown is a local newsletter and website
with recipes and menus based on seasonal fresh foods

hogtownhomegrown@gmail.com www.hogtownhomegrown.com

“…plants no more aspire to being stir-fried in a wok than a hog aspires to being peppercorn-studded in my Christmas clay pot.

The more that scientists learn about the complexity of plants — their keen sensitivity to the environment, the speed with which they react to changes in the environment, and the extraordinary number of tricks that plants will rally to fight off attackers and solicit help from afar — the more impressed researchers become, and the less easily we can dismiss plants as so much fiberfill backdrop, passive sunlight collectors on which deer, antelope and vegans can conveniently graze. It’s time for a green revolution, a reseeding of our stubborn animal minds.

Just because we humans can’t hear them doesn’t mean plants don’t howl.”

via Basics – Another Challenge for Ethical Eating – Plants Want to Live, Too – NYTimes.com.

“Monsanto’s patented genes [are] inserted into roughly 95 percent of all soybeans and 80 percent of all corn grown in the U.S….

Declining competition in the seed business could lead to price hikes that ripple out to every family’s dinner table… the corn flakes you had for breakfast, soda you drank at lunch and beef stew you ate for dinner likely were produced from crops grown with Monsanto’s patented genes.

At issue is how much power one company can have over seeds, the foundation of the world’s food supply.

U.S. Department of Justice lawyers are seeking documents and interviewing company employees about its marketing practices.”

via Monsanto Squeezes Out Seed Business Competition, AP Investigation Finds.

Score 1 for environmental justice. (For once.)

A U.S. Federal Court has ruled the U.S. government failed to adequately evaluate the environmental risks of Monsanto’s new Franken-crop, the Roundup-Ready “superbeet.” As you may know from the film Food, Inc., the Monsanto Corporation is known for some truly monstrous practices, not the least of which are wreaking environmental havoc and driving small farmers to ruin. Well, here’s one fight they haven’t won (yet?).

About 1.1 million U.S. acres were seeded this year to Roundup Ready sugar beets in the fourth year of commercialized production.

Critics say the Roundup Ready beets are dangerous for the environment because they promote the emergence of “superweeds” or weeds that cannot easily be killed because they also develop a tolerance to weedkiller. They also say that organic and convential beet farmers are damaged because the genetically altered sugar beets are wind-pollinated and inevitably cross-pollinate related crops grown nearby.

via In GMO Superbeets Case, Court Hands Monsanto a Defeat : Chelsea Green.