Inspiring Ideas

Joining Jamie Oliver on Food Revolution Day

Thu, 17 May 2012 04:11:00 GMT

This Saturday, May 19th, is Food Revolution Day. It is an unprecedented call to action that will inspire, educate and empower people around the world to stand up for real food.

And if someone had suggested that I'd be doing this a few years ago, I'd have said they were nuts. I was nuking nuggets and burning noodles. I wasn't a foodie, just a former financial analyst with four kids.

But life changes you and an allergic reaction in one of our children over breakfast did just that, making me an unlikely crusader in this food movement. And this week, I am thrilled to be joining thousands of people worldwide who will be participating in events to raise awareness on preventing diet-related diseases and perhaps diseases and conditions that we don't yet know are diet related (because those studies have not yet been done).

It's been a pretty big shift, and it's only been six years since that breakfast and the launch of AllergyKids. And six years ago, in all honesty, I'm not sure if we were quite ready for this message. But having spent the last several years, working with families and corporations around the country, politicians on both sides of the aisles and countless other Americans inspired into action, one thing is certain, we are ready now.

We are having a food awakening in our country, and it's largely driven by the unspoken truth we see every day in the declining health of our families. From "pink slime" to "meat glue" and genetically engineered crops hardwired to withstand saturation with chemicals, around the country, we are realizing that not knowing about how our food is produced is not good for the health of our loved ones.

Ignorance may have once been bliss, but today, the majority of the world's population is more likely to die from obesity than hunger. In fact, in the United States, more people die from diet-related disease every year than drugs, alcohol and war combined. That's not good for our children and that's not good for our country .

Which is why I am so proud to be supporting the remarkable efforts of Jamie Oliver and the Food Revolution team on Food Revolution Day to help inspire and empower people to believe in their ability to create change.

In Colorado, we will be inviting people to our local Farmers Market to bring any piece of junk food, processed food, fake food (you know, the nutrient-void kind that packs nothing but calories) on Saturday, May 19th, and swap it out for some real food, full of ingredients that will nourish your family that have been donated by amazing companies that were founded on the principal that real food should be available and affordable to all Americans, regardless of socioeconomic status or zip code.

We're calling the event the Food Swap and will include fun and games for the little ones, as well as an adult-sized spelling bee sure to leave you absolutely stumped. Details are here.

And then later that evening, I'll be joining Jamie and four dinner guests from around the country and around the world for what is sure to be a heartfelt, insightful and inspiring hangout and a dinner conversation that we hope you will be part of (learn how by clicking here).

The food movement needs you. It needs all of us to lend our voices. The CEOs of our corporations are listening, they have children, too, as do members of Congress. And while none of us can do everything, all of us can do something. So lend your talents, share your love, and become part of the Food Revolution. And let's create this legacy for the health of our loved ones together.

Top 10 Chemicals Most Likely to Cause Autism and Learning Disabilities

Tue, 01 May 2012 03:21:00 GMT

As originally seen onPrevention.com
Last week, the Mount Sinai Children's Environmental Health Center (CEHC) released a list of the top ten toxic chemicals suspected to cause autism and learning disabilities.

This list can't come soon enough, as last month, the CDC reported that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) now affects 1 of every 88 American children -- a 23% increase from 2006 and a 78% increase from 2002.

And while there is controversy over how those numbers are reached, it still is worth repeating. There has been a 78% increase in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in the last ten years. At the same time, the CDC also reported that ADHD now affects 14% of American children.

As these disorders continue to affect more children across the U.S., researchers are asking what is causing these dramatic increases. Some of the explanation is greater awareness and more accurate diagnosis. But clearly, there is more to the story than simply genetics, as the increases are far too rapid to be of purely genetic origin.

According to the Mount Sinai Children's Environmental Health Center (CEHC) release this morning and data from the research article, "Environmental Pollutants and Disease in American Children (July 2002), "the National Academy of Sciences reports that 3% of all neurobehavioral disorders in children are caused directly by toxic exposure in the environment and another 25% disorders are caused by interactions between environmental factors and genetics. But the precise environmental causes are not yet known". (Note: the first version of this article included a link to the National Academy of Sciences study from 2000 and has been updated to include a link to the July 2002 study).

So while industry can claim that there is little evidence that these chemicals in isolation or in combination (which doctors now refer to as "synergistic toxicity") cause autism, the truth is that there is still very little evidence or the toxicological safety studies. In other words, there is a gap in the science.

There is a huge gap. According to CNN, the EPA has tested only about 200 of the 80,000 chemicals in use.

But thankfully, that is changing with the work of the team at Mt. Sinai and the extraordinary leadership, courage and intellect of Dr. Phil Landrigan and the urgent call by experts to reform chemical laws.

To guide a research strategy to discover potentially preventable environmental causes and to arm parents and those hoping to be parents with knowledge, the Children's Environmental Health Center (CEHC) has developed a list of ten chemicals found in consumer products that are suspected to contribute to autism and learning disabilities.

This list was published today in Environmental Health Perspectives in an editorial written by Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, director of the CEHC, Dr. Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), and Dr. Luca Lambertini, also of the CEHC.

The top ten chemicals are:

Lead
Methylmercury
PCBs
Organophosphate pesticides
Organochlorine pesticides
Endocrine disruptors
Automotive exhaust
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
Brominated flame retardants
Perfluorinated compounds

As the Children's Environmental Health Center shares, the editorial was published alongside four other papers -- each suggesting a link between toxic chemicals and autism. Both the editorial and the papers originated at a conference hosted by CEHC in December 2010.

The first paper, written by a team at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, found preliminary evidence linking smoking during pregnancy to Asperger's disorder and other forms of high-functioning autism. The next two papers, written by researchers at the University of California - Davis, show that PCBs disrupt early brain development. The final paper, also by a team at UC - Davis, suggests further exploring the link between pesticide exposure and autism.

Ultimately, all five papers call for increased research to identify the possible environmental causes of autism in America's children.

This importance of this call to action can not be emphasized enough, because while our children may only represent 30% of our population, they are 100% of our future and we need to protect them like our country depends on it. Because it does.

So what can you do to protect the health of your children? Thankfully, a lot. And while none of us can do everything, all of us can do something, so choose one, some or all from the list below:

Eat organic food whenever possible to reduce exposure to synthetic pesticides which by law are not allowed for use in its production
Open your windows to clear the air in your home from the toxins that can accumulate there
Take your shoes off as you come inside to keep pesticides on the soles of your shoes from entering your home
Look for cans and plastic bottles that are "BPA-free"

Want to learn more? Please visit Healthy Child Healthy World and the Environmental Working Group

An Earth As Sick As Our Children

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 01:27:00 GMT

I wrote this about a year ago for a friend, but the words, with only a few additions, still ring so true today.

With epic heat waves, floods, wild temperature fluctuations, volcanic reactions and scorched and infertile grounds, it appears that our planet is sick.

And just as our increasingly allergic and asthmatic children are covered in dry patches, running fevers and launching inflammatory responses to things in their environment, the Earth appears to be having an allergic reaction.

We have poured fossil fuel over her skin, filled her airways with pollution and poisoned her water with everything from oil to agrichemicals to pharmaceutical drugs.

Is it any wonder that her health appears to be failing?

So if the Earth were a child that was this sick, what would this condition be called?

It could be called "climate fever." She is running hot and cold with all kinds of conditions that have the potential to cause tremendous harm.

And her fever affects all of us. Families, friends, farmers. Is it short-term? How long will it last?

The fact of the matter is that dirty air, water, soil, climate.....they don't care what we think or what side of the aisle we are on...they affect all of us.

So with an image of a child in mind, maybe it's time that we take a new approach. And rather than "fight global warming" and get into "he said/she said" debates, arguing over how sick this child has become or who is to blame, perhaps it's time that we simply care for our planet as a mother might care for a child.

And rather than the routine dousing of her skin with toxic pesticides and agrichemicals, we might consider reducing her exposure to these chemicals and cultivate an approach to agriculture that isn't chemically or fossil fuel dependent, like the one recently recommended by the United Nations.

And rather than continuing to inject her with IV-like instruments used to extract the very oil and fossil fuel that is harming her, we could consider building clean energy sources and alternative energy infrastructures to give her the means with which to grow and thrive without the risk of toxicity.

We could call on our collective talents and insights to lend to the healing of her condition.

And rather than focus on what short-term economic advantages can be obtained through the extraction of her resources, recognize that we need to care for her as if our wellbeing depended on it.

Because it does.

And while new data shows that countries like China are contributing more than the United States and Canada combined to climate pollution, we have the extraordinary opportunity to embrace a moral authority, to design and create new energy systems that will not only serve us economically and financially but also resourcefully and sustainably for generations to come.

It won't happen overnight, but we're a pretty resilient source of renewable energy ourselves, and in the words of George Eliot, "it is never too late to be what you might have been."

Originally written for the Fearless Revolution in June 2011.

Eight Ingredients You Won't Find Hidden in Organic Food

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 01:15:00 GMT

Fifteen year ago, if someone had suggested that I'd be writing this column, I'd have asked what planet they were on.

I was working as a financial analyst that covered the food industry. My day to day consisted of meeting with management teams, taking factory and store tours and cranking out reports on companies like Kroger, Safeway, Costco and Whole Foods. I wasn't a foodie, and I couldn't cook.

My job included crunching the numbers, learning business models and evaluating the costs of production and distribution of our food supply.

Thank goodness.

Because today, that experience has served a greater purpose: the ability to look at the current state of our food system, the financial engineering of the science behind it and the economically motivated decisions that food industry executives make to meet their fiduciary duty to drive shareholder return and sheds light on how these decision are affecting the health of our families.

And it's becoming increasingly obvious that we've got a broken economic model at work in our food system. Farmers are rewarded with taxpayer funded resources called subsidies for growing crops in a chemically-intensive, genetically and financially engineered kind of way to drive shareholder return for the chemical companies. While on the other hand, farmers that are growing things organically, which means by law without the use of synthetic pesticides and crops genetically engineered to require increasing doses of toxic weed killer, have to pay fees to prove that their crops are safe, then fees to label those crops with the "USDA Organic" seal and then they don't receive the same crop insurance and marketing assistance programs that the other farmers do.

Add to that the fact that American companies formulate their products one way for eaters over seas, without the use of artificial colors, genetically engineered ingredients, high fructose corn syrup, and it's enough to get anyone going. But the fact of the matter is that what we have to label as "organic food" here in the United States is more or less called "food" in other countries. Because overseas, it's the products that contain all of the novel ingredients like, genetically engineered ones, that have to be labeled.

So what's a consumer to do? Learn the Big 8. These are the ingredients which, by law and according to our very own United States Department of Agriculture, are not allowed into the production of foods that are made organically:

High Fructose Corn Syrup
Artificial Colors and Dyes, Red 40, Yellow 5
Aspartame
Preservatives
Artificial Growth Hormones
Genetically Modified Ingredients
Exceeding levels of Pesticides
Finely Textured Lean Beef Trimmings ("Pink slime")

This can be tough to swallow. Especially if you really stop to think about it: our taxpayer dollars are hard at work growing our food in a chemically-intensive way, while farmers that are growing things without the use of these chemicals, things that even the President's Cancer Panel has urged us to avoid, end up costing the consumer more to buy. It's like we are being hit twice: once, subsidizing our chemically intensive agricultural system and twice, with the price of organic food if we choose to opt out.

It's a broken system we've inherited, but it doesn't have to be that way going forward.

The health of our country is largely contingent on the health of our food supply, and while the food industry argues that a lot of these ingredients are perfectly safe (just as the tobacco industry claimed the same of their products to our grandmothers), they are quickly removing them from their products in other countries (or never even introduced them in the first place). In order to make this free-from version of food affordable to all Americans, not just those in certain zip codes, isn't time that we start doing the same thing here?

A Sip of Soda: How Soft Drinks Impact Your Health

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:51:00 GMT

Social media affords us extraordinary opportunities to connect with talented individuals across a diverse range of industries. And it is something that I am grateful for every day. So when a reader recently shared a compilation of images that she had designed that told her "food story,"I was stuck by how powerful those images were, especially the one below.

And while diet is like religion, it is not one-size-fits-all, we are quickly learning that there are a lot of little things that we can do that can make a big change in the health of our country. And with recent reports suggesting that even a 64 calorie reduction a day could go a long way to reducing the escalating rates of obesity, maybe it's as easy to do as ditching a can of soda. If you need some inspiration, try the infographic below.

Via TermLifeInsurance.org
Via: Term Life Insurance

Food Fraud? 8 Adulterated Ingredients in the Food Supply

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 23:18:00 GMT

Food fraud. Not something you really want to hear about given our love affair with food. But given that the landscape of food is changing so dramatically due to extraordinary gains in technology and our access to foods from around the globe, it's a subject worth addressing.

New research published in the April Journal of Food Science is apparently the first analysis of "food fraud" or as it is called in the scientific literature, "economically motivated adulteration in food."

Having worked as a financial analyst that covered the food industry among others, I am all too aware of this economic motivation, the need to meet quarterly earnings and the desire to drive shareholder returns. As a matter of fact, that economic incentive is at the heart of our current capitalist model, and is given the regal-sounding name of "fiduciary duty." In other words, it is what executives in the food industry are paid to do: reduce costs of production by replacing natural ingredients with their cheaper, synthetic alternatives in order to increase profit margins.

According to the study, "the authors found 95 percent of records involved replacement -- an authentic material replaced partially or completely by another, less expensive substitute."

So where is this happening? It turn out that based on a review of records from scholarly journals, the top seven adulterated ingredients in the database are:

Olive oil
Milk
Honey
Saffron
Orange juice
Coffee
Apple juice

But if we were to take the literal definition of food fraud, which as defined in a report commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security and funded by the National Center for Food Protection and Defense (University of Minnesota) as:

"A collective term that encompasses the deliberate substitution, addition, tampering or misrepresentation of food, food ingredients or food packaging, or false or misleading statements made about a product for economic gain."

Wouldn't that also include our corn and soy that have been engineered to contain patented, distinctly characterized traits that enable the crops to either synthesize and create their own insecticides or to withstand increasing saturation by other chemicals like weed killers?

So should genetically engineered ingredients be #8 on the list?

If the lawsuit against Frito-Lay for the labeling of their corn products as "natural" despite the fact they contain these patented, genetically engineered ingredients, and a similar suit against ConAgra for doing the same with their cooking oils are a leading indicator, it is certainly food for thought.

And if the beef industry can serve as an example, with a beef processing company filing for bankruptcy (perhaps to avoid shareholder litigation or any false and misleading claims filed by consumers) as consumers opt out of "pink slime" and the USDA calls for its labeling, shareholders might want to start asking some tough questions.

A food awakening is happening in the United States, fueled in part by the escalating rates of diseases and in part by the social media. And with genetically engineered ingredients labeled in over 40 countries around the world (as seen in the image below) and patented by the United States Patent and Trademark Office for their distinctly different characteristics, it just might be a smart move for investors interested in both the health of their families and the health of their portfolios to be mindful of the continued adulteration of our food supply.

To learn more about the economically motivated adulteration of food, please visit the database www.foodfraud.org

Health Care and Disease Management: Revolutionizing the Prototype

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:23:00 GMT

Health care. You couldn't pick a more loaded political topic (OK, maybe oil) which is absolutely fascinating. Especially in light of the escalating rates of diseases in our country.

Because the bottom line is that unfortunately, we are growing sicker by the year and in increasing need of a thriving health care system to address these conditions.

No one wants to admit these things, and yet the Centers for Disease Control continues to release alarming statistics: from cancer being the leading cause of death by disease in children under the age of fifteen, to the escalating rates of asthma, to the increased hospitalizations related to food allergic reactions. It's not just our health that is coming under pressure, our medical system is, too.

It's something that I recently addressed as a keynote to a healthcare conference in Boston (with a short interview highlighting some stats below).

But rather than careen into the darkness, let's not stop and pause for a moment to reflect on the state of our health and our healthcare system. Let's dialogue, based on the principals of Joseph Schumpeter and that of creative disruption, and take a hard and honest look at the existing model in order to revolutionize the design of a new one.

No other nation on the planet spends as much as we do on medical care. As a matter of fact, no one spends more than 12% of their total economy, their GDP, on health care costs.

But according to TIME Magazine, "the most striking aspect of America's medical system remains how much of an outlier it is in the advanced industrial world."

What do we spend? 17%. So 17 cents of every dollar floating around in our economy is spent in the medical system. Sure, that's a great model if you are a company in the medical system capturing those expenditures, it drives shareholder return. But what about the impact that these costs have on our families, corporations and ultimately our economy?

Well, let's take a look.

The fact of the matter is that we do worse than most other countries on almost every measure of health outcomes. We lag behind countries like Bosnia and South Korea in terms of life expectancy at birth, as well as show elevated levels of infant mortality and depressed levels of patient satisfaction.

In other words, we're not healthy and we're not happy with the system we've got.

As TIME Magazine writes "Put simply, we have the most expensive, least efficient system of any rich country on the planet. Costs remain high on every level."

But just because this is the system that we've inherited (consider it a prototype), it doesn't mean that it has to be the system we continue to embrace going forward. We had the fax machine for a while. It worked, but then we developed new technologies, smarter, better, more efficient prototypes. We can do the same thing here.

The landscape in front of us is wide open. And we know that America's got talent, creativity and a fierce entrepreneurial spirit with which it can drive change. It's those characteristics upon which our country was founded.

So lend your talent. Put some skin in the game. Whatever you want to call it.

Let's bring food into the health care equation and let's figure this out. Because we've got too much at stake, as a country, as an economy and as citizens both at home and in the global marketplace.

FDA Update: One Million Comments "Lumped Together", Not "Deleted"

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:33:00 GMT

You may have seen a Yahoo Voices article that claims the FDA “deleted” the more than 1 million comments we submitted to the FDA last week. I have learned that the story is misleading.

Here are the facts:

The FDA has an outdated and non-transparent system that requires organizations like Just Label It to submit multiple signatures as an attachment.
Each upload is counted as one “comment,” even though it may in fact contain hundreds of thousands of individual comments.
Lumping signatures together in one comment and uploading to regulations.gov is the way groups have submitted comments for as long as the government has accepted electronic comments (something that the Just Label It team was aware of before collecting comments).
The FDA has not "deleted" the 1 million+ comments as stated in the Yahoo story.
More information is available on counting methods in last week's story from the Chicago Tribune.
To view all the individual comments made in these attachments, someone would need to file a Freedom of Information Act request with the FDA.

While the system at the FDA is not very transparent or user-friendly, this record-breaking number of comments speaks to how, together, with informed and inspired commitment, we can call for the labeling of genetically engineered ingredients in our food supply, as they are labeled in over 40 other countries around the world.

Because it is our firm belief that it is important for the FDA to listen to the American people and label genetically engineered foods, and give consumers the right to choose what they are feeding their families, just as the USDA is listening to the American public over their concerns about the ingredients in ground beef and giving schools the right to choose, too.

We are grateful for your help and look forward to the time that the United States joins other developed countries and gives consumers the right to know what is in the foods they are feeling their loved ones.

To contact the FDA to share your concern, please email consumer@fda.gov, call 1-888-SAFEFOOD or visit www.justlabelit.org

An Idea Worth Spreading, A Dialogue Worth Having

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 01:31:00 GMT

As to be expected, there is a scientist in the field of genomics aggressively speaking out against one of my TEDx talks.

It’s not the first time that my work has come under fire, nor will it be the last as the information that I present is disruptive. To many, it creates a cognitive dissonance - a discomfort caused by holding conflicting ideas, beliefs or values and can often elicit a strong emotional reaction.

And it did just that over the weekend from a scientist at the University of Florida which houses the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

So when I looked into the work of the person making the accusations, I was not surprised that he had dedicated his life to plant research and genetic engineering. His commitment is remarkable. I understand it, because it is that same dedication that I have to my research and work into the financial engineering and the role it can play in the integrity of science.

That dedication, that level of commitment, is something to be honored, not slandered, as it is not without sacrifice.

But his criticism was that of a subject that continues to raise itself as to whether or not genetically engineered crops are safe.

The scientific debate tends to center around whether genetically engineered crops have been “thoroughly tested,” while a debate around the financial engineering of the science continues to grow.

So let’s look at the science, because as the Union for Concerned Scientists states:

“Political interference in federal government science is weakening our nation's ability to respond to the complex challenges we face. Because policy makers depend on impartial research to make informed decisions, we are mobilizing scientists and citizens alike to push for reforms that will enable our leaders to fully protect our health, safety, and environment.”

In a Science Magazine in 2000, a Spanish researcher named Jose L. Domingo who later went on to write a 2007 paper, “Toxicity Studies of Genetically Modified Plants: A Review of the Published Literature,” found only seven peer reviewed papers on genetically engineered crop safety as of 2000, most of them dealing with short-term nutritional effects.

According to Dr. Charles Benbrook, who worked in Washington, D.C. on agricultural policy, science and regulatory issues from 1979 through 1997, served for 1.5 years as the agricultural staff expert on the Council for Environmental Quality at the end of the Carter Administration, and following the election of Ronald Reagan, moved to Capitol Hill in early 1981 and was the Executive Director of the Subcommittee of the House Committee on Agriculture with jurisdiction over pesticide regulation, research, trade and foreign agricultural issues, what that means is that at the time that two genetically engineered products were approved for the food supply, there were no studies in the open scientific literature.

Let’s stop and think about that for a minute in the context of something that is more familiar.

Can you imagine if a medical device or a new pharmaceutical drug were introduced with no studies in the open scientific literature for public review? Or if a car was introduced onto the highway in the same manner?

The concern is shared by the National Academy of Sciences in the paper, Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods: Approaches to Assessing Unintended Health Consequences, "As with all other technologies for genetic modification, they also carry the potential for introducing unintended compositional changes that may have adverse effects on human health."

Furthermore, according to Benbook, as of 2007 and Domingo's more recent and comprehensive review, a “Toxicity Studies of Genetically Modified Plants: A Review of the Published Literature", there are still no more than about ten studies assessing the toxicological impact of genetically engineered ingredients in our food supply, almost all are limited in scope (there is a review of 24 studies focusing on nutritional equivalency), and short term, with most of them dealing with genetically engineered foods other than corn and soybeans.

Which means that the bottom line is that there are no published, peer reviewed studies on the toxicological impacts of today's commercial genetically engineered ingredients now found in our food supply, and almost none on older genetically engineered ingredients, that provide evidence that show that these foods are toxicologically safe.

At the conclusion of the abstract for the paper, the author himself poses the question: “where is the scientific evidence showing that GM plants/food are toxicologically safe?”

To me, that is a question so important that it was unequivocally an “Idea Worth Spreading,” a question worth asking, a dialogue worth having.

Correlation is not causation but with the Centers for Disease Control now reporting that cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children under the age of fifteen, that there has been a 265% increase in the rates of hostpiatlizations related to food allergic reaction, it is worth noting that “no evidence of harm” is not the same as “evidence of no harm.”

What we are witnessing, through 55 members of Congress that have called for the labeling of these ingredients, the over one million Americans who have sent comments to the FDA asking for the same, interest in a TEDx talk given by a former financial analyst, author and mother of four, is a movement, perhaps begun by the Spanish researcher with his ask for the scientific evidence showing that genetically engineered foods are toxicologically safe, and a call for the labeling of these foods, as they are labeled in over 40 countries around the world, until we have more science.

It is a call for studies that might alert a pregnant woman working on a farm about the impact that her exposure to these crops and the chemicals used to produce them might have on the health of her unborn babies.

It is a call for science and for the research that tells a mother if her child is allergic to conventional soybeans, the kind that has been in our food supply for generations, or if her child is allergic to the genetically engineered components now found in soybeans that were introduced in the late 1990s.

It is a call for the scientific tests that would enable a father to test his child for those differences at his allergist’s office.

It is a call for science and our right to know about the foods that we are eating and what their impact might be on the health of our families.

Is correlation causation? Not at all, but with millions of Americans beginning to wake up to the fact that we have additives in our food supply, from lean beef trimmings, to artificial growth hormones to genetically engineered ingredients, additives that were not in our foods a generation ago, we are asking for more science, integrity in science, full disclosure of the financial engineering behind the science, and for labels and the right to make an informed choice about what we are feeding our families.

We have learned what can happen otherwise, from the tobacco industry to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, so I hope that the TED team will continue the conversation with consumers, genetic engineers as well as financial ones, economists and the medical community in a forum in which attendees can express their opinions and one that requires full disclosure of any institutional ties, research grants or patents of those involved to preserve the dialogue and the scientific integrity of the discussion.

Because as Carl Sagan once said, "We have designed our civilization based on science and technology and at the same time arranged things so that almost no one understands anything at all about science and technology."

An idea worth spreading? A dialogue worth having? Absolutely.

Additional Resources:

Scientific Integrity: Union of Concerned Scientists: http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/
Toxicity Studies of Genetically Modified Plants: http://www.biosafety.ru/ftp/domingo.pdf
Faculty Endowments: http://www.uff.ufl.edu/FacultyEndowments/ProfessorshipInfo.asp?ProfessorshipFund=007489
Kevin Folta's Blog: http://kfolta.blogspot.com/2012/03/complete-insanity-in-theater-built-by.html
UF Scientists Collaborate with Monsanto: http://news.ifas.ufl.edu/2011/10/14/uf-scientists-collaborate-with-monsanto-to-develop-improved-computer-model-for-corn-production/
The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster: A Study in Organizational Ethics http://pirate.shu.edu/~mckenndo/pdfs/The%20Space%20Shuttle%20Challenger%20Disaster.pdf
Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods: Approaches to Assessing Unintended Health Consequences http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309092094

Wall Street Joins the Food Revolution Over a Bowl of Mac and Cheese

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 01:13:00 GMT

Today, investors joined the Food Revolution as Annie’s Homegrown, a little mac and cheese company that makes cheddar bunnies, went public.

Having worked as a financial analyst on a team that included several dads, there was not a doubt in my mind that the IPO was going to be a success (as I discussed back in this December 2011 interview).

Little did I know by how much. Annie’s initially hoped to price their shares between $14 and $16, but as interest continued to grow, it became clear that investors were as hungry for change as consumers, and Annie’s raised their offering price and ended up pricing above the range at $19 per share and closing up 89% on its opening day.

As Annie’s made its way around Wall Street, it set a precedent in the food industry, not only because it was started by a mom who wanted a healthier version of mac and cheese for her kids but also as a public food company, full of values and void of junk, promising to do good and do well.

And as we are quickly learning, it can’t come a moment too soon. Because while other countries have chosen opt out of things like high fructose corn syrup, artificial growth hormones, artificial food dyes derived from petrochemicals and genetically engineered ingredients into their food supplies – particularly in the foods fed to children – they are still used in our products here.

The reason? Because mounting scientific evidence (not the industry-funded kind used for marketing purposes) shows that these ingredients might play a role in conditions like hyperactivity, cancer and allergies.

But even beyond the double standard, what is truly jaw-dropping is the fact that our American corporations formulate their products differently for eaters in other countries.

We are lucky to have Annie’s here in the United States, adhering to this level of food production that focuses on maximizing health and minimizing harm, because here is a look at just how different a box of mac and cheese can be:

U.K. Version of Mac & Cheese:

Macaroni (Durum Wheat Semolina), Cheese (10%), Whey Powder (from milk), Lactose, Salt, Emulsifying Salts (E339, E341), Colours (Paprika Extract, Beta-Carotene)

U.S. Version of Mac & Cheese:

Enriched Macaroni Product (wheat flour, niacin, ferrous sulfate (iron), thiamin mononitrate (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B12), riboflavin (vitamin B2), folic acid), Cheese Sauce Mix (whey, modified food starch, whey protein concentrate, Cheddar Cheese (milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes), Granular Cheese (milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes), Salt, Calcium Carbonate, Potassium Cloride, Contains Less Than 2% of Parmesan Cheese (part-skim milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes, dried buttermilk, sodium tripolyphosphate, blue cheese (milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes), Sodium Phosphate, Medium Chain Triglycerides, Cream, Citric Acid, Lactic Acid, Enzymes, Yellow 5, Yellow 6).

Source for Ingredients Lists: Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, The Cheesiest Dinner (U.S. Version), Kraft Cheesy Pasta (U.K. Version)

What Does "Organic" Really Mean? Ask Your Grandmother

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:46:00 GMT

When I first heard the term "organic" several years ago, I dismissed it. It connoted a "status" and conjured up two different images: lifestyles of the rich and famous or perhaps some alternative, hippie thing.

I was wrong.

The term "organic" actually refers to the way agricultural products are grown and processed and legally details the permitted use (or not) of certain ingredients in these foods.

The details are that the U.S. Congress adopted the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) in 1990 as part of the 1990 Farm Bill which was then followed with the National Organic Program final rule published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The standards include a national list of approved synthetic and prohibited non-synthetic substances for organic production which means that organically produced foods also must be produced without the use of:

antibiotics
artificial growth hormones
high fructose corn syrup
artificial dyes (made from coal tar and petrochemicals)
artificial sweeteners derived from chemicals
synthetically created chemical pesticide and fertilizers
genetically engineered proteins and ingredients
sewage sludge
irradiation

Wow, who knew that conventional, non-organic food could contain these ingredients? Not many of us, since sewage sludge and artificial growth hormones aren't on the label.

What about cloning animals or those genetically engineered salmon, hard-wired to double their weight? Those would be considered inconsistent with organic practices, too, because of the laboratory intervention required.

In other words, what we call "organic food," our grandmothers would have simply called "food." Because a lot of these new ingredients didn't exist when we were younger, having only been created in laboratories, patented and then introduced into our foods in the last few decades.

LOOK FOR THE SEAL

Products labeled “100% Organic” and carrying the “USDA Organic” seal adhere to a strict legal standard: national organic standards require that organic growers and handlers be certified by third-party state or private agencies or other organizations that are accredited by USDA. Anyone who knowingly sells or mislabels as organic a product that was not produced and handled in accordance with the regulations can be subject to a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per violation.

WHY ORGANICS COST MORE

Admittedly, the high price of organic food can irritate anyone. But the scrutiny that these foods undergo is enormous and expensive, driving prices at the cash register and for those producing them on the farm. Why the costs? Because the cost structure on our food supply offers taxpayer-funded resources called subsidies to the farmers using genetically engineered seeds and saturating crops in insecticides and weed killers, while charging the organic farmers fees to prove that their crops are safe.

That's like getting fined to wear your seat belt.

In other words, it's an un-level playing field right now. And if we were all sitting down as a national family at our national dinner table, I don't think that any of us would want to be using our resources this way. Wouldn't we rather have the organic food be the one that we fund, making it cheaper, more affordable and more accessible to all Americans?

But right now, it's not. So should you choose to opt out of our conventional, chemically-intensive food production system and try something organic, you'll be joining a growing segment of the population and are not alone.

WHERE TO START? Hop on over to Prevention, where I've written more.....

Source: The Organic Trade Association (OTA) and Organic Trade Association’s 2007 Manufacturer Survey (Because USDA does not yet do comprehensive market studies of organic sales, as it does for conventional U.S. agriculture.)

Inspired Design

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 20:21:00 GMT

Anyone who has followed my work, knows that I sing a constant refrain:

None of us can do everything, but all of us can do something.

Thank goodness, right? Especially when there are certain things that you know you are just not good at.

For me, that lack in expertise revolves around tools for design technology. I have never been trained in them, think they can be used to create pieces of work that are absolutely beautiful and am in awe (and so envious) of those who possess the talent.

So when someone reached out to share the work that she had created after hearing one of my TEDx talks, it absolutely blew me away. It is something that leveraged her unique talents with her passion (which we happen to share about clean and safe food) and inspired me so much that I wanted to share it here.

Hope it inspires you, too!

An Earful: Corn Congress and the Cash Crop

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 18:07:00 GMT

"You learn something every day if you pay attention." ~Ray LeBlond

And that happened this morning, when in an online dialogue, a farming friend popped in, talking about his trip to DC for the "Corn Congress."

"What's a 'Corn Congress'?" I asked, never having heard the term.

To which another friend promptly chimed in that "Corn Congress" is a meeting in Washington DC of corn growers, members of the National Corn Growers Association and particularly those focused on "commercial corn."

Sounded powerful, to me.

Since I wasn't entirely sure how they defined "commercial corn," I asked another question.

To which came the quick reply that 99.3% of the corn grown in our country is called "commercial corn" and is used for a string of alliterations, including convenience foods, colas, cows and car fuel. Only 0.7% of the corn we grow is "veggie corn", the sweet corn eaten as a veggie by humans.

Who knew? (OK, besides Michael Pollan). But I found those statistics fascinating, especially in light of the food and ethanol subsidies used to support the growing of these crops. Corn subsidies in the United States, financed by taxpayer resources, totaled $77.1 billion from 1995-2010.

Corn has earned the title "cash crop"for a reason, it appears, and as it is traded on the Chicago Board of Trade and bundled into derivative trades on the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index, you can't help but wonder if Big Ag is the fuel that will rival Big Oil.

It is certainly food for thought.

How to Have Fun in the Kitchen On This Changing Landscape of Children's Health

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 17:48:00 GMT

When I was asked to write the foreword for Kiwi Magazine's new cookbook, Allergy-Friendly Food for Families, I was totally intimidated. Because in the beginning, I couldn't really cook.

But as I leaned into it, the words began to flow, and with the release of this extraordinary resource for food-sensitive and food-allergic eaters, I thought I'd share them below, because the book is an incredible tool, offering 120 gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free and soy-free recipes everyone will love.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The landscape of childhood has changed. In the last several years, we have seen jaw-dropping increases in the rates of allergies, autism, ADHD and asthma, earning these conditions the nickname “the 4 As” and our children the title, “Generation Rx.”

Today, it is estimated that food allergies affect at least 1 out of 17 kids under the age of three, with a study showing a doubling of the peanut allergy between 1997 and 2002. And according to an October 2008 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there has been a 265% increase in the rate of hospitalizations related to food allergic reactions.

And as we work to protect our food allergic families from the hidden dangers that foods can present, a growing number of us are finding our ways into the kitchen in an effort to prepare foods that are both safe and nutritious for our families.

For some, like me, this may be an intimidating task. Because a few years ago, I couldn’t cook. But when my youngest child had an allergic reaction one morning over breakfast, which in all candor included blue yogurt, frozen waffles and scrambled eggs, life changed. And like so many of you, I was thrown onto this new landscape of childhood and into the kitchen in an effort to manage these food allergies.

And in learning to cook, I realized that we can take the fear out of food and make it fun.

To be honest, I’ve burnt everything from pancakes to noodles, but I’ve also learned that the most important ingredient in any recipe is love.

So I invite you to pull up a chair, flip through Allergy-Friendly Food for Families and soak in the love and wholesome goodness that are tucked into these pages. Because Allergy-Friendly Food for Families is an invaluable resources for those interested in protecting the health of their families.

And remember, while none of us can do everything, all of us can do something. So pick a recipe and get started,

Because with inspiration, practical suggestions, heartfelt instructions and real world solutions, Allergy-Friendly Food for Families is both a sound investment in the health of your family and a resource that will pay dividends for a lifetime.

You can pick up a copy of Allergy-Friendly Food for Families at Barnes and Noble, your local retailer or on Amazon. To learn more, please visit Kiwi Magazine.

An Attitude of Gratitude

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 14:23:00 GMT

In the last week, extraordinary things have happened to our food supply.

Coca Cola and PepsiCo agreed to alter their formulas in order to reduce the risk of a potentially cancer-causing caramel color in their product, Campbell's Soup announced they are kicking a hormone-disrupting chemical out of their soup cans, the USDA agreed to school lunch programs a choice around "pink slime" and 55 members of Congress sent a letter to the FDA calling for the labeling of biotech's genetically engineered ingredients - ingredients, not unlike "pink slime," that industry claims is safe.

And what is remarkable about all of these things is that these changes were driven by consumer demand - consumers flat out wanted the right to know what was going into their foods and beverages.

So here's a thought: thank them. All of them for stepping up and making these changes. Sure, it might have taken some time, but hop on their websites and send in an email. It won't take long. And an attitude of gratitude goes such a long way. For every voice that they hear, they recognize that there are dozens if not hundreds behind it.

Send a quick thank you to your local Congressman for being one of the 55 who sent a letter to the FDA calling for the labeling of genetically engineered foods.

Or if yours wasn't on the list, and you want to give them a heads up, you can find a link to who your state senator is right here.

Plug in your zip code (you probably already know this) and it will bring up the list of the entire delegation, from federal to local.

All you're doing is sending a little "thank you" note, or maybe a simple: "Hello. Like you, I am concerned about the health of my loved ones, our community and our food supply..."

Remember: Together, we can do this. Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good. A little gratitude can go a long way. And you may just begin an unlikely conversation (and find out that, like you, your local Congressmen has loved ones that might have allergies, diabetes, ADHD or cancer...).

Together, we can create a much-needed dialogue around restoring the health of our country.