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By Susan Blasko
August 8, 2010
In a phone and e-mail conversation with Preston Mears, he helped me
to put Ethical Eating in a religious context in preparation for this
service. He recounted the creation myth in Chapter 1 of Genesis, the
more recent version in which humankind is given authority to name
all living things. In so doing, humans were given dominion over them
as well, and some use this as justification to exploit. He explained
that the older account, in Chapter 2, tells of the Garden of Eden.
In this version, the privilege to name all creatures comes with the
responsibility to care for them.
When Preston asked me to write a homily about Ethical Eating, he
challenged me to convey what it means to be a steward of the Garden.
I wondered, how can I, living in an urban environment, be a steward
of a garden? I don’t even have one in my back yard! I do care about
the environment, but I never felt I had the power to make a
significant improvement in it. Instead, I did what I could to
protect myself from it, while at the same time trying not to
contribute to its destruction.
And what is Ethical Eating? What does it have to do with stewardship
of the Garden? And why was it chosen as a UUA study action issue? At
my church, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax (UUCF),
the Ethical Eating Task Force put together a statement for our web
page in which we proposed this definition:
“If you:
• consider the personal, societal, ethical, and
spiritual implications of your food choices;
• seek a more just and equitable food system;
• are concerned about the health and environmental
consequences of how your food is produced;
• wish to purchase food and eat according to principles
that have a positive impact on all of the above;
then you are an ethical eater.”
It goes on to say: “Our current food production system is
unsustainable and unhealthy for us, for the Earth, for local
economies, and for our spiritual well being. The purpose of the
Ethical Eating Task Force is to raise awareness and bring about
positive changes in how food is produced and brought to our table.
The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) study guide for
“Ethical Eating” provides the framework for our activity. We invite
collaboration with individuals, religious institutions, and
organizations that would like to join us in our efforts. You are
welcome whether or not you eat meat, vegetables, raw food, fast
food, or slow food. And you do not need to be a member to work with
us.”
When I first began this “food journey”, my objective was more
self-focused. I just wanted to reclaim my health and wellbeing. I
didn’t give as much thought to the environment or the economy or the
animals, although I must admit that feed lots have bothered me for a
very long time. I was a vegetarian for seven years, until I
developed deficiencies and was advised to re-introduce meat into my
diet.
When I was diagnosed with cancer I asked the usual question: “Why
me? Is there something I’ve missed?” I had followed much the
conventional wisdom on diet and exercise, read about the latest
scientific studies, implemented the recommended lifestyle and
behaviors. I was physically active for much of my life as a runner,
biker, swimmer, and hiker. I trusted that my government was ensuring
that the fresh food I ate was safe and nutritious. None of the women
in my family had cancer. My grandmother on my father’s side lived to
be 100 years old, and my maternal grandmother was 91 when she died.
Genetic testing for one of the cancers confirmed what I believed,
that it didn’t run in the family. Cancer was the last thing I ever
worried about. So it was quite puzzling to me how I could end up
with three of them.
We all know there are many things that contribute to the development
of cancer –stress, unhealthy emotions and mental states of being,
plastics that leach harmful chemicals into our food, air pollution,
electromagnetic radiation, chemicals in our water supply, smoking,
drugs. I’ve made changes that address many of these factors, and I’m
still working on them. But this homily is about Ethical Eating, so I
will focus mainly on food.
While I was undergoing chemotherapy I began studying and seeking
alternative sources of information about health and nutrition. I
came to a new truth after much reading and reflection. As a result,
I decided to adopt different ways of living that were healthier for
me.
As I gradually implemented these changes, I noticed that what was
good for me, my body, my health, was also good for the Earth, good
for the environment. For example, meats and raw milk from grassfed
livestock, pastured poultry, and eggs from pastured chickens. Many
of us have heard the argument that ruminants contribute to global
warming. But these calculations are based on feedlot animals, not
animals on pasture. Grazing animals produce less methane than their
feedlot counterparts that are fed genetically modified grain, stale
M&Ms, byproducts from citrus processing, and other things too
obscene to mention in church. The carbon released into the
atmosphere by grazing animals is the same amount that would be
released if the grass simply died and decayed instead being eaten.
Also, the droppings from these animals add to the topsoil, which
then sequesters more carbon from the atmosphere. Calculations done
by the Carbon Farmers of America, the Rodale Institute and other
organizations suggest that if all the animals on feedlots were put
out on pasture today in a managed grazing program, we could
sequester all of the carbon that has been released into the
atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial age in less than
ten years. How’s that for stewardship of the garden?! (It’s also
worth mentioning that since 1999, according to the Soil Carbon
Coalition, atmospheric methane concentrations have leveled off while
the world population of ruminants has increased at an accelerated
rate.)
Michael Pollan, author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, said that “if
you take feedlot cattle off their corn diet and let them graze, they
will shed eighty percent of the E. coli in their gut in just five
days.” And the waste that they produce would be a blessing to the
earth rather than a toxic curse.
So by eating meat from animals that are raised in this way, I am
part of a system that is restoring the Earth and reducing disease.
It’s good for the environment. It’s also good for my body, because
the right balance of omega-3, -6 & -9 fats and oils are present in
animals that eat grass, not in animals that eat grains and other
foods. There are no growth hormones, antibiotics or steroids in my
meat, either, so my body doesn’t have to work so hard to break down
and remove these toxins.
It’s good for the animals, too, because they have had a chance for a
long, healthy, happy life in the pasture where they were born to be,
instead of a brief, miserable, stressful and diseased life on a
feedlot.
Here’s another example of how eating what is healthy for me is also
healthy for the environment. I avoid genetically modified (GM) foods
because studies have linked them to infertility, immune
dysregulation, allergies, tumors, and neurological disorders. The
cost to society’s health is outlined in a position paper by the
Academy of Environmental Medicine which says, “The strength of
association and consistency between genetically modified foods and
disease is confirmed in several animal studies.”
The manner in which GM foods are produced is a very heavy burden for
the Earth. Toxic chemical fertilizers are added to the soil, and the
plants are doused with chemical pesticides to such a degree that
these pollutants find their way into the streams, rivers and oceans.
By not consuming GM foods, I’m improving not just my own health, but
the health of the Earth. I always ask the farmer I buy from whether
they use chemical pesticides or fertilizers. And I don’t buy my food
from a grocery store anymore, because I know that 80% of the food
there is GM and it’s not labeled.
The more I learned about sustainable farming and nutrition, it
became clear that our food system, medical system, and economic
system work in such a way that creates barriers to the changes I
wanted to make. I became angry because for the first time in my life
I felt that I didn’t have the freedom to choose the foods that I
know are best for me. So I decided then, while I was still letting
the poison that the doctors said would save me trickle into my
veins, that after I was finished fighting for my life, I would fight
for food freedom.
Recently the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund sued the USDA and
the FDA over food and farming related issues. The Fund argued that
Americans have the right to choose what foods they want to eat. The
FDA’s official response was in part, "There is no absolute right to
consume or feed children any particular food. The assertion of a
'fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health, which
includes what foods they do and do not choose to consume for
themselves and their families' is unavailing because the plaintiffs
do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish.”
Joel Salatin, the owner of Polyface Farms in Swoope, VA, said, “The
only reason the framers of the Bill of Rights did not include
freedom of food choice along with the right to bear arms, worship
and speech was that they couldn’t conceive of the day when food
would have to have a USDA sticker on it”. Joel was featured in
Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and the movies “Food, Inc.”
and “FRESH”. He also won a Heinz-Kerry Award this year for the
positive impact his farming method has on the environment.
Because of this condition of lack of food freedom, here is just one
of the obstacles I encountered in my quest for life-giving food that
heals my body and our tortured land:
While I was studying, I learned that raw milk and fermented raw
dairy products like raw yogurt and kefir from clean, grass-fed cows
is an immune booster. Here is how powerful it is: If a pathogenic
bacteria like salmonella, e-coli, lysteria, campylobacter, is
introduced into a sample of raw milk, and then the milk is tested
after a few days, the pathogenic bacteria will be gone. Killed by
the beneficial bacteria in the raw milk. I learned that before the
turn of the last century, many diseases and ailments were treated
with what was known as the “milk cure”, including tuberculosis. I
also learned that a high percentage of people who cannot drink
pasteurized milk from the grocery store would thrive on raw milk
from grassfed cows. In short, raw milk heals. Well, I thought I’m
going to drink raw milk and kefir and eat raw yogurt. I’m going to
rebuild my compromised immune system! I’m going to help heal the
Earth! Not so fast… In Va, you’re allowed to drink raw milk, but
it’s illegal to buy or sell it.
I have come to trust, befriend and appreciate a number of farmers
who provide me with safe, local, nutrient dense food. I give thanks
for them and for this food three times a day. I no longer depend on
the government to protect me from contaminated, genetically
modified, or processed foods, nor from produce that is deficient in
nutrients. I have not purchased food in a grocery store in 2 years,
except for an occasional lemon or avocado, which I buy at a co-op or
health food store.
Last year I provided public comment at a USDA Listening Session on
the National Animal Identification System. Several of my Amish
farmer friends were there. One of them, Levi, said to a member of
the meat packing industry who was in our circle, “The root words of
agriculture are ‘agri’, meaning soil, and ‘culture’, way of life.
For us”, he said, “agriculture is a way of life. Agri-business is
all about money.” The National Animal Identification System, or NAIS,
is written into food safety legislation that has already passed in
Congress, and is now in the Senate. If passed, it will give broad
authority to agencies to curtail local, sustainable farming of
vegetables, meat and dairy. It will impose standards that actually
diminish the nutritional quality of our food. It will encourage feed
lots and genetically modified foods, as well as more importing and
exporting of food for the profit of large companies. Putting small
and mid-sized farmers out of business, and raising barriers to the
production of local, sustainably grown food will severely limit my
food choices.
Let me relate another less obvious scenario that is occurring right
now:
The European Union tests food for nutrient content before it is
allowed to be sold on the market. With nationalized health care, the
government has a financial interest in the health of its citizens.
Any foods that don’t measure up are sent back to the country of
origin, or to another country that will accept them. Japan also
tests for nutrient content.
The United States has no standards for nutrient content of food, so
the government does no testing. However, a large organic vegetable
grower in California tests their food privately. The food with the
greatest nutritional value is shipped to Japan. I wonder how many
other organic growers implement this practice?
On the local economic front, the food safety bill will result in
more poverty. As if to distract us from this condition, the USDA,
for the first time in its history, avoided the term “hunger” in its
annual report on hunger in the U.S. Instead the agency used a new
euphemism, “suffering from food insecurity”. The Rev. David
Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, remarked about this, “We
should not hide the word hunger in our discussion of this problem
just because we cannot hide the reality of hunger among our
citizens.”
Back to stewardship of the Garden, and an interesting definition of
cancer:
Tom Cowan, a medical doctor and co-founder of the Weston A. Price
Foundation, defines cancer as “the condition that occurs when a
certain type of cell out of the many different types of cells in our
body grows in an uncontrolled way, in an excessive way, at the
expense of all the other cells in the body.” He then defines
civilization as “the process wherein humans decided to co-opt the
natural resources of the land base and grow themselves at the
expense of the rest of the community. This civilization project, if
you want to call it that, started about ten thousand years ago,
probably in the Tigris and Euphrates delta. The region of the Garden
of Eden is now a desert. It took ten thousand years, which is the
blink of an eye. We believe deeply in growth. In order to grow we
co-opt resources from the rest of the earth’s community. The rest of
the community withers and dies and one particular species grows more
and more until it kills the land base or the person.” That is his
definition of civilization.
“According to early explorers, the once fertile Great Plains
extending from Minnesota to Texas had a top soil twelve feet deep.
By the 1930s, it was only 12 inches. And that was before chemical
agriculture, before GMOs, before Monsanto. It was after only a
hundred years of growing grains – and growing them organically. For
those of us who say the solution is to simply return to organic
agriculture, remember that the Garden of Eden in the Tigris and
Euphrates Delta became the desert of Iraq solely through organic
agriculture, and maybe some over-grazing.”
Today we continue the assault by growing huge mono-crops at the
expense of the environment, necessitating more and more chemical
pesticides and fertilizers. Hope lies in the fact that industrial
agriculture is creating not only our demise, but its own as well. It
is so dependent on us, and their existence is so fragile, that if we
change our buying habits by only 2%, it can no longer survive. We’re
at 1% now.
It seems that we have learned this lesson before. Listen to a quote
by Abraham Lincoln at the 1859 Wisconsin State Fair: “The ambition
for broad acres leads to poor farming, even with men of energy. I
scarcely ever knew a mammoth farm to sustain itself, much less to
return a profit upon the outlay. Mammoth farms are like tools or
weapons which are too heavy to be handled. Ere long they are thrown
aside, at a great loss.”
We can change this broken system by not participating in it. Through
Ethical Eating, we become stewards of the garden of our bodies, and
of the greater garden – the interconnected web of all existence of
which we are a part. Do I still become angry sometimes? Oh, yes. And
when I do, I close my eyes, and go into my garden, where there is
peace and well being. And when I go there, I know that I will be
deeply nourished. May we all find serenity and wholeness in the
Garden. Amen.
Susan Blasko is a cancer survivor twice over. She now
incorporates local farm fresh foods into her diet in her on-going
quest for health. Susan is a member of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal
Defense Fund, a volunteer chapter leader of the Weston A. Price
Foundation’s Falls Church, Virginia chapter, and an assistant
organizer of the Northern Virginia Whole Foods Nutrition meetup
group. Top guest blogger on the “hartkeisonline” food blog, her
story, “Sky Meadows Pasture-to-Prison Cell Program is Profitable
Prison Nutrition”
(http://hartkeisonline.com/2009/10/05/prison-food-the-grass-fed-model/)
get a coveted link from the Huffington Post. Susan is studying to be
a Nutritional Therapist, and will be certified to practice this
fall.
References:
Unitarian Universalist Association Ethical Eating Study Action
Issue:
http://www.uua.org/socialjustice/issuesprocess/currentissues/ethicaleating/index.shtml
UU Congregation of Fairfax Ethical Eating Task Force:
http://www.uucf.org/content/gsg-ethical-eating-task-force
Belching Ruminants, a minor player in atmospheric methane, Joint FAO/IAEA
Programme:
http://www-naweb.iaea.org/nafa/aph/stories/2008-atmospheric-methane.html
Carbon Farmers of America:
http://www.carbonfarmersofamerica.com/
Rodale Institute:
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/
Soil Carbon Coalition:
http://soilcarboncoalition.org/
American Academy of Environmental Medicine Position Paper on
Genetically Modified Foods:
http://www.aaemonline.org/gmopost.html
Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund:
http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/
Polyface Farm:
http://www.polyfacefarms.com/
Does Raw Milk Kill Pathogens? Ted Beales, MS, MD:
http://www.realmilk.com/does-raw-milk-kill-pathogens.html
NAIS Update, Judith McGeary, Esq., August 24, 2010:
http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/NAIS-update-McGeary.htm
Food Safety: The Worst of Both Bills (HR 2749 & S 510), Pete
Kennedy, Esq., May 6, 2010:
http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/news/news-foodsafety.htm
USDA Drops the Word “Hunger” in its Annual Report, Bread for the
World Press Release:
http://www.bread.org/press/releases/page-30830713.html
A Holistic Approach to Cancer, Tom Cowan, MD, The Weston A. Price
Foundation’s Wise Traditions Journal, Winter 2009:
http://www.westonaprice.org/modern-diseases/cancer/1834-a-holistic-approach-to-cancer.html
Quote of the Week, Organic Consumers’ Association “Organic Bytes
#169”, April 15, 2009:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob169.htm
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