The landscape of food has changed.  

Not only is it available 24/7 and  marketed to us using mobile apps and Internet games, but it is also full of lots of ingredients that just didn't exist when we were kids.   So while our food may look the same, it now contains  artificial, engineered and genetically altered ingredients that are so new that patents have been filed on them in the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Not something any busy eater wants to hear.  Especially a busy parent who is doing his or her best to simply get the kids to eat.

But we are quickly learning that the ingredients in our foods - the good ones that include vitamins and minerals and the ones that have the potential to cause harm - have a lot to do with the health of our families.

And if you are just getting started on trying to eat a little cleaner or reduce your families exposure to artificial ingredients, you may be hearing about something called "genetically engineered foods."  If you haven't heard about them, you're not alone.  While countries around the world labeled these ingredients when they were introduced in the 1990s, we didn't here.

So a lot has changed in our food in the last decade, and given the juggling act that most of us perform on a daily basis, coupled with the fact that these new ingredients were never labeled, it's no surprise that we are only just beginning to have this dialogue around the labeling of these ingredients here in the United States.  States like California, North Carolina and other have taken a lead on it.  But the dialogue is now being held at the national level, with millions of citizens calling on the FDA to do the same.  So we put together a short Q&A, working  with researchers who have not accepted funding from or developed patents for the corporations developing these new products, to pull together this information for you.

FACT SHEET: GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS

Did you know that your drink might contain an ingredient that is not used in beverages in 100 countries around the world?

Brominated vegetable oil (also known as “BVO”) is found in sports drinks and citrus-flavored sodas.  It is a chemical that keeps two liquids mixed together.  It acts as a binding agent, also known as an emulsifier, and it prevents the flavoring and other ingredients found in our drinks from separating and floating to the surface.

It makes sense , on one level, as we don’t want our drinks to look like a separated salad dressing with ingredients floating to the top!  But this appearance might come with a hidden side effect.  According to SHAPE magazine and nutritionist Mira Calton and her husband Jayson Calton, Ph.D., “Because it competes with iodine for receptor sites in the body, elevated levels of the stuff may lead to thyroid issues, such as hypothyroidism, autoimmune disease, and cancer,” Calton says. As if that wasn’t scary enough, BVO's main ingredient, bromine, is a chemical that is considered toxic. It's been linked to all kind of health concerns, including organ system damage, birth defects, schizophrenia, and hearing loss, which explains why it's been removed or banned from food and drinks in more than 100 countries.

These health concerns and the fact that so many countries have removed BVO from their beverages was so concerning to one 15 year old that she launched an online petition that landed her in the New York Times in which she called for the removal of this ingredient from American beverages, as it’s been removed from products around the world.

Want to opt out of brominated vegetable oil here in the United States? Skip the sports drinks and choose water.  And if you’re filling up your cup at the soda fountain, instead of the lemon-lime and citrus flavored drinks, consider drinking something else.

Remember, while none of us can do everything, all of us can do something.  Focus on progress not perfection, and do what you can, where you are with what you have, remembering not to make “the perfect” the enemy of “the good.”

 Follow Robyn on Twitter @unhealthytruth or on Facebook.

According to Reuters News, a report released out of MIT suggests that heavy use of the world's most popular herbicide, Roundup, could be linked to a range of health problems and diseases, including Parkinson's, infertility and cancers.

The peer-reviewed report, published last week, said evidence indicates that residues of "glyphosate," the chief ingredient in Roundup weed killer, which is sprayed over millions of acres of crops, has been found in food.

Many Americans are more  familiar with RoundUp than we realize. It is a weed killer, used on lawns and gardens, with precautionary measures taken by parents to keep it locked in cabinets and out of the reach of children.  What most Americans don’t realize is that this chemical is routinely used on the foods we eat, most notably corn and soy.

It is now so widely used in modern agriculture that a recent article about glyphosate, the chief ingredient found in RoundUp, from the global news organization, Reuters, highlighted that these chemicals are part of an enormous market, with world annual sales totaling $14 billion, with more than $5 billion of that spent in the US alone.

But what are they doing to us?  Especially given their pervasive use on the foods we eat?

Well, MIT aimed to find out.

According to the report, authored by Stephanie Seneff, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the research suggests that the RoundUp residue now found on our food enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease. "Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body," the study says.

We "have hit upon something very important that needs to be taken seriously and further investigated," Seneff said.

MIT is not alone in their concern. In the mid 1990s, using a new technology, our soy was genetically engineered with new organisms to make it able to withstand increasing doses of weed killer, chemicals and glyphosate.  The  business model makes perfect sense.  It enhances profitability of the chemical companies by enabling the increased sale of their chemical treatments and weed killers.

But according to the work of Professor Miguel A. Altieri of the University of California, Berkeley who had looked into unforeseen risks that might be associated with genetically engineered crops and these chemicals being sprayed on them:

“Exactly how much glyphosate is present in the seeds of corn or soybeans (genetically engineered to withstand this chemical) is not known, as grain products are not included in conventional market surveys for pesticide residues.  The fact that this and other herbicides are known to accumulate in fruits…raises questions about food safety, especially now that million pounds of this herbicide, ($5 billion worth) are used annually in the United States alone. Even in the absence of immediate (acute) effects, it might take 40 years for a potential carcinogen to act in enough people for it to be detected as a cause.  Moreover, research has shown that glyphosate seems to act in a similar fashion to antibiotics by altering soil biology rendering bean plants more vulnerable to disease”. In other words, it might take a generation for these effects to show up.  In light of the escalating rates of infertility, pediatric cancer and inflammatory bowel diseases, it begs the question: since the introduction of this new technology in the 1990s, is that happening now?

So why are we using a chemical that is too dangerous to store under our kitchen sinks in the reach of children on the foods we feed our families?

Monsanto is the developer of both Roundup weed killer (an “herbicide”) and a suite of crops that are genetically altered to withstand being sprayed with it.  These genetically engineered crops, introduced into our food in the 1990s and 2000s, have the unique ability to withstand increasing doses of the weed killer and are known as “RoundUp Ready”.  In other words, it helps them sell more chemicals.

Since the introduction of these genetically engineered crops, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data reveals that between 2001- and 2007, as much as 185 million pounds of glyphosate was used by U.S. farmers, double the amount used six years ago. So in the past, where we may have been getting a sprinkling of this chemical on our food crops prior to the introduction of RoundUp Ready crops, with the recent introduction of genetically engineered foods, designed to withstand this signature product, the doses are at unprecedented levels.

So what is this product doing to us?

Glyphosate, found in RoundUp, is the world's most popular herbicide and is designed to kill pests and insects, anything but the genetically engineered "Roundup Ready" plants, such as genetically engineered corn, soy, beet, cottonseed and canola. These genetically engineered crops , including genetically engineered corn, genetically engineered soybeans, genetically engineered canola and genetically engineered sugarbeets, are planted on millions of acres in the United States annually and widely and generously in the US food supply, particularly processed foods, without labels.

When these crops were first introduced in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was conjectured that farmers would like them because they could spray Roundup weed killer directly on the crops to kill weeds in the fields without harming the crops.  And they did.  But about three planting cycles in, it appears that Mother Nature has Monsanto figured out and it is now reported that over half of the farmers using these products are experiencing a resistance to the chemical company’s signature product and suffering from what are known as “superweeds” in their fields.

It was not only the unknown impact of environmental and crop disruption that caused countries around the world to exercise precaution around the use of these chemicals, it was also the uncertainty of the long-term impact that these crops and the chemical products applied to them would have on both the environment, soil, a developing fetus or human health that resulted in their use being banned in 27 countries around the world and labeled in 64 more.

In light of the study out of MIT, this precautionary measure seems well-founded, as with the approval of every new RoundUp Ready crop, there is a 2-5 times increase in the amount of glyphosate that is applied. And while that may help drive profitability for the chemical industry, there are social costs: lost yields in food production and any health care costs that may be associated with the harm that these chemicals might cause.

The authors of the MIT report are concerned that RoundUp, for which these genetically engineered crops are named, and the chemical used in it, glyphosate, are contributing to diseases as far-ranging as inflammatory bowel disease, cancer, infertility, cystic fibrosis, cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, going so far as to suggest that it "...may be the most biologically disruptive chemical in our environment." According to Green Med:

“The researchers identified the inhibition and/or disruption of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes as a hitherto overlooked mechanism of toxicity associated with glyphosate exposure in mammals. CYP enzymes are essential for detoxifying xenobiotic chemicals from the body. Glyphosate therefore enhances the damaging effects of other food borne chemical residues and environmental toxins.  The researchers also showed how interference with CYP enzymes acts synergistically with disruption of the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids by gut bacteria (e.g. tryptophan), as well as impairment in serum sulfate transport, a critical biological system for cellular detoxification (e.g. transulfuration pathway which detoxifies metals).”

In working with plant biologists, I have learned that glyphosate kills weeds by turning off key enzymes that produce defense mechanisms for plants.  It essentially targets and destroys their immune systems by chelating, stripping, micronutrients like magnesium, copper and zinc from the plant.  As a result, there are fewer of these key micronutrients in the plants and in our food supply. This effect, according to the researchers, can contribute to causing or worsening "...most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet which include gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer's disease."

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard this.  It picks up on a previous Reuter’s article that was titled “Cancer Cause or Crop Aid?”

In Canada, the Canadian tolerable levels for glyphosate are 58 times lower that those in the US and that European tolerance levels are even lower as a precautionary measure to protect vulnerable subsets of the population, like pregnant women and children.  Plant biologists share that the levels of glyphosate now found in the US food supply have been clinically shown to be toxic, citing its effects on human placental, kidney, liver and testicular cells.

So what will it take to address this in the United States?  The EPA has promised to look into it in 2015.  But that’s two years of babies being born and two more years of escalating pediatric cancer rates in the US.  

We already spend more on health care costs and disease management than any other country on the planet, according the the Office of Economic Co-operation and Development.

Unlike previous researchers, this is not a report from an anti-GMO activist, nor is it a report from the organic industry, this is a scientific research paper from one of our nation’s leading academic institutions led by a woman who is courageously highlighting that the potential toxicity of one of the world’s most widely used chemicals on our food supply is far greater than was previously considered.

Scientists and researchers who have spoken out on the dangers of these products are often attacked.  This situation is no different, as Monsanto’s website in a "Featured Article: goes so far as to call MIT’s research “Another Bogus ‘Study.’”

We still do not label genetically engineered foods in the United States, foods that have literally been given this product's name and are hardwired to withstand increasing doses of it, foods that were introduced as recently as the late 1990s and early 2000s into our food supply. If the jury is still out on them, as evidenced by the MIT study, shouldn't we at the very least be labeling them?

In light of the escalating rates of pediatric cancers, autism and other conditions impacting our children, the American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending a new policy, too, as seen on their website which states:

“The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that chemical management policy in the United States be revised to protect children and pregnant women and to better protect other populations.”

The reasons for this concern are not unfounded. 

The American children have earned the title of “Generation Rx.” The Centers for Disease Control now reports that cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children under the age of 15.  And oncologists and leading experts in the field of cancer are calling for new treatment models, worried that the increasing costs of cancer is going to put an unprecedented strain on our health care system.

So what is a parent to do?

According to Investor Place, an investment research site that tracks the stock price of Monsanto and the impact that news like this would have on its share price, “a spokesman for Monsanto says that glyphosate is a proven safe ingredient and is less damaging than other widely used chemicals.”

It must be how our grandmothers felt when told that cigarettes didn't cause cancer either.

While this type of corporate marketing and positioning may be in the best interest of shareholders, industry funded research often merits further independent investigation.

The question of labeling genetically engineered foods is not just an academic debate, it is increasingly  an ethical one.  And while the industry will claim that this is a concern afforded to the wealthy, that these crops are needed to feed the world, mounting scientific evidence is proving that with no long term human health data, other than what we are witnessing ourselves in the health of the American children, labels represent a precautionary measure, afforded to parents in 64 countries around the world who are able to walk into a grocery store and choose if they want to feed their children foods that contain genetically engineered ingredients.

As evidence and controversy grows, highlighting the toxicity of these products increasingly used on our food supply in the US, labels afford American eaters the same rights afforded to eaters around the world.  Cancer doesn’t care what side of the aisle we are on or what our income is, and the costs of diseases being born by our families, our corporations and our economy have the potential to destroy our competitiveness in the global marketplace.

A label and the knowledge that comes with it would go a long way to protecting the health of our country.

Learn how you can protect the health of your children and family from genetically engineered products and the chemicals upon which they are dependent to grow at www.justlabelit.org and at The Pesticide Action Network.

Follow Robyn on Twitter @unhealthytruth and on Facebook.

Resource: Samsel A, Seneff S. Glyphosate's Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases. Entropy. 2013; 15(4):1416-1463.

What's yoga mat material doing in a hamburger bun?

Azodicarbonamide is a chemical used  “in the production of foamed plastics.”  It's used to make sneaker soles and gym mats. In the United States, it is also used in our food, as a food additive and flour bleaching agent.

This "ingredient" is most often found in breads, boxed noodle mixes, and packaged baked goods. So why in the world are we using it in our food?

Back in our grandmothers' days, bread would go stale within a day or two and grow mold by the end of the week.  Not fun but natural.  

So in order to address this concern for food retailers, the industry began adding this foaming agent in order to extend the shelf life of bread and preserve it.  To pump it up and plump it up in order to keep it fresh and enhance their profitability.

Around the world, most countries wait about a week for flour to whiten on its own, but the American food processors prefer to use this chemical to bleach the flour here because time is money.

But it turns out that the United States is one of the only developed countries in the world that allows something used in shoes and gym mats to also be used in sandwiches.  

You can get up to 15 years in prison and be fined nearly half a million dollars for using this chemical in Singapore.  It is banned as a food additive and in food packaging in the United Kingdom whose “Health and Safety Executive” considers it a  “respiratory sensitizer.”  Europe and Australia ban the use of this chemical, azodicarbonamide, too, because it has been linked to asthma and other allergic reactions.

But are we allergic to wheat or what is being done to it?

In the last twenty years, we have seen an epidemic increase in allergies, asthma, ADHD and autism, including a:

• 400% increase in food allergies
• 300% increase in asthma, with a 56% increase in asthma deaths

It's time to rethink food, rethink the role of the FDA in light of its shrinking budget and capacity to regulate our food system and to require that independent scientific studies be conducted, not only for the health of our children, but also for the sake of our increasingly burdened health care system and the tole that the chronic rates of diseases and their escalating costs are having on the health of our economy.

 Follow Robyn on Twitter @unhealthytruth and on Facebook.  

Eighteen years ago today, I met my husband.  He is my greatest blessing, having loved so unconditionally through changes that neither of us could have ever foreseen.  Some of those changes have been obvious, others, not so much, and I can not help but reflect on one of the early ones. 

For most of my life, I was hooked on Diet Coke.  I was in love with the brand, and as a kid, collected bottles and cans of various shapes and sizes.  The red and white were iconic.  I didn’t drink coffee or tea or even much water.  Just Diet Coke.  I loved it.

And every year for Lent, I would give it up until Easter.  It was tough.

I’d get headaches that would last a couple of weeks as I went through what felt like withdrawal.  What caused it?  I had no idea, but those first few weeks without it were always brutal, especially when I was in college and business school.  But as Lent would roll on every year, I’d find my way, only to arrive at Easter weekend, thrilled at the thought of being able to drink it again on Easter Sunday.  I had gone without for 40 days.  I was disciplined.  My grandfather had been a minister in the church.  We took Lent seriously.  So for those 40 days, year after year, I'd give up Diet Coke and dive back into it again on Easter.

Until I met my husband eighteen years ago.  And as I was getting ready to buy some for Easter weekend, he asked: “Why go back on it?”  And for whatever reason, that year, I didn't. 

I think about this every Lent, about how hard it was to go without that can of soda, to break the habit.  Diet Coke was as much a part of my everyday as anything else. in college, it was the first thing I had to drink each day. 

I never thought about what was in that can, the mix of ingredients, how it might affect me or anything else until I began researching children's foods seven years ago.

It turns out that aspartame, commonly used in diet sodas, is not used in kids' foods in other countries.  It's not banned, but our American companies just decided to reformulate and drop it as an artificial sweetener in the foods consumed by children.  I learned that three quarters of food-related illnesses reported to the FDA have been directly related to aspartame, the artificial sweetener found in diet sodas.   But that after 1992, the FDA ceased documentation of these reports. In other words, they stopped counting. 

It's not what you want to hear if you have ever been hooked on it. Aspartame is an artificial sweetener formulated with two amino acids, phenylalanine and aspartate.  It breaks down into several primary toxic and dangerous ingredients, including most notably, formaldehyde and an embalming fluid....I didn't want to know given how much I had consumed.  It was so hard to hear. 

But I couldn't unlearn it nor the fact that it is no longer used in kids' foods in the UK. 

At times I think, I wish I had known this earlier, as a teenager, a college kid, a grad student.  Then again, maybe I would have dismissed it.  I'd always thought that if something was on a grocery store shelf, it was safe, that someone had independently tested them for safety.  But that is not always the case.  While other countries don't allow certain ingredients in foods until they have been proven safe, it turns out that our standard is a bit different: we allow things on store shelves until they have been proven dangerous.  And since the FDA stopped counting the complaints from consumers in 1992, it brought any need to conduct further safety studies to a halt. 

But given the list submitted by Health and Human Services to the FDA regarding all symptoms of aspartame consumption, I can't help but reflect on what independent science might tell us today.

 

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:

The landscape of childhood has changed.  No longer are our children guaranteed a childhood free from diabetes, obesity or food allergies.

From the escalating rates of childhood cancers, to the increasing diagnoses for conditions like autism and ADHD, the landscape of childhood has changed, earning our children the title "Generation Rx".  They are the first generation of kids expected to have a shorter lifespan than their parents.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children under the age of 15.  The journal Pediatrics has reported that 15% of American girls are expected to begin puberty by the age of 7 (with the number closer to 25% for African American girls) and a growing number of American children struggle with obesity.  On top of that, the rate for having food allergies is 59% higher for obese children, with the Centers for Disease Control reporting a 265% increase in hospitalizations related to food allergic reactions. 

And while not all of those hospitalizations are for our children, what is becoming increasingly obvious is that the health of our children is under siege.

When I shared this data with a journalist this morning, she was speechless, and I found myself again wondering: What have our children possibly done to deserve this?  And more importantly, what can we do to protect them?

This changing landscape of childhood is changing the face of American families and our economy.  We already spend 17 cents of every dollar on health care, managing disease.  The pharmaceutical companies can’t keep up with demand, and now there are shortages for drugs used to treat cancers and ADHD.

But more often than not, the solution is not found in the medicine cabinet, but in the kitchen. And as scientific evidence continues to mount, courageously presented by doctors like Mark Hyman, MD, in his groundbreaking book, The Blood Sugar Solution, and pediatric specialists like Dr. Joel Fuhrman and Dr. Alan Greene, about the role that diet and nutrition plays in the health of our children, parents are beginning to take notice.

And as we introduce new foods that are nutrient-dense (meaning full of vitamins and minerals) and try to reduce our loved ones' exposure to the foods that are nutrient-void (food that are increasingly loaded with artificial ingredients that have been synthetically engineered in laboratories), we are realizing that we have the power to affect remarkable change in the health of our children and families, so that together, we can stem this tide of children flowing into pediatric hospitals being built across the country.

Because while our children may only represent 30 percent of the population, they are 100 percent of our future.   And if our current spending on health care and disease management is a leading economic indicator, we need to stem this tide before it becomes a financial and economic storm, for the sake of our children, our families, our economy and our country.

Follow Robyn on Twitter @unhealthytruth and on Facebook.

Did you see the Ram Truck ad about “Farmers” in yesterday’s Super Bowl?

It touched on every reason why they are so critical to the health of our country.

The ad begins:

“And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a farmer. God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board." So God made a farmer.”

Our nation's farmers, regardless of whether they now grow organic crops or crops genetically engineered to be routinely sprayed with chemicals, have fed our country for generations.  We would not be here without them.

They learned at their grandfathers’ knees, and their legacy, four and five generations of it, continues as they pass their knowledge on to their own sons and daughters, families and grandkids.

I have met with them, in Colorado, Texas, Washington, Wyoming, Kansas and Iowa.  I have met their grandchildren, their wives, their sons, and I have seen the pride in all that they have done, for all that they have given to our country.

So when this ad highlighted the incredible dedication and devotion of our nation’s farmers, their calling and their lives, given in full service to our country, every word rang true.

It honored everything that these families have done for our country.

And yet sadly, almost as soon as it aired, controversy surfaced.

Quickly, it spread that the idea for the ad was taken from a popular You Tube video made in 2009 that used a voiceover from a Paul Harvey speech made to the Future Farmers of America Convention back in 1978.

But the words rang so true, that it is hard to blame anyone for reusing them. A powerful truth, well delivered, will resonate for years to come.

But it didn’t stop there. 

Others immediately questioned the ad, citing its lack of diversity for not showing Hispanic and black farmers, and for Dodge Ram Trucks tie-in to the Future Farmers of America, an organization whose million dollar sponsors include some of the worlds’ most powerful chemical and drug companies.

And I had to stop, to pause to digest all of it.

As I read through the website and the goal of Future Farmers of America to educate farmers, I once again felt my heart tug for these families.  The Future of Farming, it is a business model that their grandfathers never knew and would hardly recognize, in part due to the sponsors of this organization.

While their grandfathers saved seeds, today’s farmers no longer can, but rather have to now purchase seeds yearly, due to the patents on them now held by chemical corporations.  On top of that, our farmers must now pay royalty fees, trait fees and licensing fees in order to use these seeds and the technology now found inside.  Intel Inside?  It’s happening on the farm, as today’s model now resembles one of an operating system, a technology that must be licensed for use, and a suite of products that must be purchased to ensure that it works.

So as I read about Future Farmers of America, I read about their sponsors: a chemical company that has introduced this system, bundling the sale of chemical products increasingly linked to cancer, behavioral disorders and other conditions in our families and requiring licensing agreements for the use of this new technology, as well as a pharmaceutical corporation, routinely administering drugs to our farm animals, and all I could think is: Is this the future of farming in America?

Today, our families are sick. 

Mounting scientific evidence is pointing to the ingredients now found in our food supply that weren’t in the foods we ate as kids.  The Presidents Cancer Panel reports that 41% of us are expected to get cancer in our lifetimes and urges us to reduce our exposure to some of these ingredients.  All of us, farmers and families around the country, because cancer is hitting all of us, including the farms, stealing wives and the grandfathers, children and sons.

We have seen it firsthand.

And special reports out of the United Nations reveal that this chemically-intensive agricultural system is not the only future of farming and that other countries are rethinking food, rethinking farming, recognizing that this new technology and chemically-dependent farming system, does not ensure food security, but rather, exacerbates environmental issues and health conditions that are increasingly challenging all of us and the health of our country.

Maybe that’s why the ad resonates so deeply.

Maybe it is because I am named after a farmer.  Maybe it is because the first time I remember seeing my father emotional, it was after he helped in the complicated delivery of a lamb.  I do not know, but there is something in this ad and in these farm families that can touch you to the core.  And they are worth protecting in every way.

Just as we do not teach our children one subject in school, our farmers should not only be taught this chemically and pharmaceutically intensive way of farming for the future.   Science, independent science (not science produced by the industry to serve as a marketing tool), is demonstrating that it may not be in the best interest of the farms, the food supply or the health of our country.

And our farmers need solutions: loan sources that do not require they license the use of this new technology or purchase these chemicals, systems that help them restore mineral levels in soil, technology that helps them convert to a less toxic form of farming. A tool box full of different methods and technologies, not only to ensure that we have food security in our country, but also to ensure that it is delivered in a way that causes the least harm, to our farmers, our soil, our environment and our families.

The future of our food system is in the hands of these farmers, these stewards of our food supply, which begs the question:

Why aren’t we offering our farmers a way to opt out of this chemically and pharmaceutically dependent system?

We need all hands on deck…not just those belonging to the chemical and pharmaceutical corporations, because somewhere along the way we have forgotten that while we may occassionally need a doctor, a lawyer or a banker, we need a farmer every day, three times a day, to feed our families.

Here is the full text of Paul Harvey’s speech from 1978:

And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board." So God made a farmer.

"I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon -- and mean it." So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain'n from 'tractor back,' put in another seventy-two hours." So God made a farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor's place. So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark. It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week's work with a five-mile drive to church. "Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life 'doing what dad does.'"

So God made a farmer.

Follow Robyn on Twitter @unhealthytruth and on Facebook.

Right now there is a lot of discussion around the science of food dyes, with a Nestle scientist going so far as to announce this week that there is "no way back from this natural color trend" and that this trend toward natural colors for foods, drinks & sweets is here to stay.

His comments are powerful, especially in light of the ongoing debate: Do artificial colors contribute to hyperactivity in kids? Are food dyes responsible for ADHD? What about cancer concerns, as suggested by the Center for Science in the Public Interest?

The fact of the matter is that you are going to get a different answer depending on who you ask. I learned this the hard way when I went to some of our leading pediatric allergists a few years ago to ask about the link between the introduction of GMOs into our food supply and the sudden epidemic we were seeing in the number of American kids with food allergies. They didn’t like the line of questioning and fired off some pretty aggressive responses. But given my background as a food industry analyst, I quickly learned that financial ties between doctors and agrichemical, food and pharmaceutical corporations can play a pretty important role in what these doctors are willing to say.

So when people get heated up around the science of food dyes, I find myself asking the same questions: Who has funded the research? Is there a financial incentive involved to protect the status quo? And are doctors that are speaking out on this issue in any way affiliated as spokespersons for either the food or pharmaceutical companies that stand to benefit from the continued use of these food dyes in foods?

Since there are usually extensive financial ties between doctors and food and pharmaceutical corporations, it is often helpful to turn to the consumer marketplace and food companies themselves for answers because money talks.

And interestingly, Kraft, Coca Cola and Wal-Mart have already removed these artificial food colors and dyes from the products that they distribute in other countries. They’ve reformulated their product lines in other countries and no longer include these food dyes, and they did it in response to consumer demand and an extraordinary study called the Southampton Study.

The Southampton Study was unusual in that it not only tested an overall number of six dyes (three of them are used in the US (Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6) and the other three are used in the UK) but also the combination of two ingredients: tartrazine (yellow #5) and sodium benzoate. The study’s designers knew that a child very rarely has occasion to ingest just a synthetic color or just a preservative; rather, a child who is gobbling up multicolored candies is probably taking in several colors and at least one preservative.

What’s amazing is that in the U.K., the federal food safety agency actually funded the Southampton Study that led to even U.S. corporations eliminating synthetic colors and sodium benzoate from their U.K. products.

And in response, a whole host of companies, including the U.K. branches of Wal-Mart, Kraft, Coca Cola and the Mars candy company (who make M&Ms), have voluntarily removed artificial colors, the preservative sodium benzoate, and even aspartame from their products. Particularly those marketed to kids.

When I first learned about this in the spring of 2007, I was stunned. Our American companies had removed these harmful ingredients from their products overseas—but not here?

When I first learned this, I found the information discouraging. But then I realized that we aren’t asking our corporations to reinvent the wheel, we are simply asking for them to place the same products on our grocery store shelves that they are selling overseas.

Because Kraft, Coca Cola and Wal-mart are living proof that is possible for giant corporations to make and sell kid-friendly, family-friendly, and healthy processed foods so that we can give our kids some special treats—like the U.K. versions of Starburst and Skittles, for example —without necessarily exposing them to a chemical cocktail that might also give them brain tumors, or leukemia, or the symptoms of ADHD, as the Center for Science in the Public Interest recently highlighted in their report “Rainbow of Risks”.

And it is inspiring (once you get over the initial shock) to see how far the companies have gone and how quickly they acted to remove these dyes from kids’ foods in other countries.

Asda, for example, the U.K. branch of Wal-Mart acted just one week “after details were leaked to the UK press of a study by researchers at Southampton University. . . ” They didn’t even wait for the study to be published—that’s how concerned they were about public opinion.

In an article published by the Food and Drink Federation, a Web site that monitors food issues in Europe, Jess Halliday reported that “Asda [U.K. Wal-Mart] has pledged to remove any artificial colours or flavours from its 9,000 own label products, as well as aspartame, hydrogenated fat, and flavour enhancers such as monosodium glutamate.”

Wow. The Southampton study didn’t even mention those last three items. Why was the U.K. Wal-Mart rushing to make such healthy choices, when the U.S. Wal-Mart still offered the same old stuff? Wal-Mart had even been slapped by a lawsuit from the Ajinomoto, the company that now makes aspartame, which claimed that U.K. Wal-Mart’s publicizing of its aspartame-free products was a kind of defamation—all while U.S. Wal-Mart continued to use the sweetener.

Can you imagine how grateful parents in the UK must be when they read this? “[U.K. Wal-Mart] will also meet the Food Standards Agency’s salt-reduction targets–two years ahead of the 2010 deadline,” the article continued.

Isn’t that amazing? Over in the U.K., our American companies rushed to meet government standards two whole years before they even go into effect. It begs the question, why?

According to Asda/U.K. Wal-Mart food trading director Darren Blackhurt, “We know that our customers, particularly those that are mums and dads, are becoming more and more concerned about what’s in the food they buy.” Indeed, the article continues, “consumer awareness of nutrition and food quality in the UK has soared in the last few years. . . ” Accordingly, U.K. Wal-Mart was planning to spend 30 million pounds, or about $50 million, to reformulate its product line, adding that, “in the main, taste will be unaffected.”

Pretty stunning, right? Clearly learning about this remarkable decision is sure to leave a few American parents a little hyperactive. And if you look at the decision a little more closely, you will discover that Asda/Wal-Mart was far from the only British company to respond to the Southampton Study in such a dramatic way. According to the Food and Drink Federation in the U.K., several companies—whether British-based or British division of American corporations—had started offering their customers color- and additive-free processed foods.

“We are aware of the recent publication from the University of Southampton on selected artificial colours, and we will continue to follow the guidance of regulators on this issue.”—Coca- Cola Great Britain. And in fact, on May 27, 2008, the story broke that Coca Cola was removing sodium benzoate from its products—but only in the U.K.

“Kraft Foods UK has no products aimed at children that contain the ingredients highlighted in the FSA [Southampton] study. . . . [W]ith our recent Lunchables reformulation in the UK, we reduced fat and salt, as well as removed artificial colours and flavours. Without compromising quality, taste and food safety, we will continue to see where we can make changes and still meet consumer expectations.”—Kraft Foods UK

"We know that artificial colours are of concern to consumers, which is why, in 2006, Mars began a programme to remove them from our products. . . in November 2007, Starburst Chews became free from all artificial colours. . . . in December 2007, Skittles were made free from all the artificial colours highlighted in a landmark study by Southampton University. . . We have already removed four colours mentioned in the Southampton study from Peanut and Choco M&M’s, and are in the process of removing the final one so they too will be free from these artificials during 2008.”—Mars UK

“Nestlé UK does not manufacture children’s products that contain any of the additives investigated by the FSA [Southampton] research. . . . and from September 2007, the UK’s favourite kids’ chocolate brand—Milky Bar—is to be made with all natural ingredients.”—Nestlé UK

"We are committed to replacing all artificial colours in our sweets. We note the Southampton University findings, but we had begun this process already because we are continually listening to our customers.” —UK Cadbury Chocolate division

Every time I read over those quotes, I find them absolutely stunning. Why are companies that operate in the U.K.—including our very own U.S. companies—so eager to take out the artificial colors there and so completely reluctant to do so here? Why are they willing to spend the money to reformulate their products there while refusing even to consider such a change-over here?

Maybe the answer can be found in a BBC report on Asda/U.K. Wal-Mart, “Explaining its decision to halt the use of artificial colours and flavours, Asda said it was acting because ‘mums and dads are becoming more and more concerned about what's in the food they buy.’” An Asda/U.K. Wal-Mart press release elaborates: “Reformulation was hard work, but it was a labour of love.” Well, why can’t they perform that same labor of love over here? Is it too much to ask for what they have overseas?

After all, we’re not asking them to reinvent the wheel—they’ve already removed these ingredients from their products elsewhere. So why can’t our children get the same protection? Why can’t they serve up the same products to us?

Today it is estimated that 50% of Hispanic and African-American children will develop diabetes, that 1 in 90 boys has autism, and that 1 in 4 children has asthma. The Journal of Pediatrics reported that from 2002-2005, there was a 103% increase in diabetes medication for children, a 47% increase in asthma medication, a 41% increase in ADHD medication and a 15% increase in high cholesterol medicine.

And while the science may be disputed, depending on who is funding the study, as to whether commonly used food dyes such as Yellow 5, Red 40 and 6 others made from petroleum pose a “rainbow of risks” that include hyperactivity in children, cancer (in animal studies), and allergic reactions, because of the problem of hyperactivity, the Center for Science in the Public Interest petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to ban the use of these dyes given that the British government and European Union have taken actions that are virtually ending their use of dyes throughout Europe.

Is it too much to ask for the same value to be placed on the lives of the American kids in their cost-benefit analyses that has been placed on the lives of kids in the UK?

As a proud American, it seems to me that our duty as moms and dads and concerned citizens is pretty clear. We have to get this information out there so that our government and our corporations listen to us, the way that governments and corporations in Europe, Australia, the U.K., Japan, and other developed countries listen to their citizens.

Because while our children may only represent 30% of our population, they are 100% of our future.

Perhaps it’s time that we value them like our country depends on it.

It is seven years ago today that my life changed over a plate of scrambled eggs.

As my daughter's face swelled shut, I didn’t want to witness what I saw that morning, to do the work that had to be done, to find the courage that would be needed.

In all candor, seven years ago, as all of this was hitting, there was a deep yearning to somehow go back to the simplicity that we had known before that breakfast.

But that would never happen.

I couldn’t unlearn what I went on to learn or forget what I had seen.

And as I watched her struggle to breathe that morning, my life forever changed.

What I unearthed that day – that the number of children with the peanut allergy had doubled from 1997-2002, that food allergies had become so pervasive in preschool children - was the beginning of a much greater story.

As I learned about food allergies, I learned more than I could have imagined.

Today, too many Americans have allergies or asthma.   Autism now affects 1 in 54 boys in our country, while in other countries, its lack of prevalence means that the numbers aren't even tabulated.  And while the United States only represents 5% of the world’s population, 90% of the world’s ADHD prescriptions are written for our children. But it's not just the children who are struggling under these conditions,  41% of us are expected to get cancer in our lifetimes, while 1 in 2 minority children are expected to be insulin dependent by the time they reach adulthood.   The Centers for Disease Control now reports that cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children under the age of 15.

Our children have earned the title “Generation Rx” and “Generation XL” due to their escalating rates of obesity and these other conditions.  This is so hard to hear.  But we have to listen.

According to the CIA, which ranks life expectancy at birth for children born in countries around the world, the United States is nowhere near the top of that list.  As a matter of fact, for children born in the United States, life expectancy at birth places us at 50 on that list, with countries like Bosnia, South Korea, Puerto Rico and others ahead of us. Why does this matter?  According to the CIA, “Life expectancy at birth is also a measure of overall quality of life in a country.”

50th?

No one wants it this way.

Seven years into this work, I want to say I’ve had enough or write funny jokes about a “Seven Year Itch”, but I can’t.  The severity of the issue is too great.  I have met parents who have lost children to allergic reactions, farmers who have lost wives to cancer and mothers who have lost toddlers to leukemia.  But I have also met others whose creative intellect, profound commitment and relentless scientific inquiry prove that together, we can create change this.

We need all-hands-on-deck.

Mounting scientific evidence continues to point to the role that our increasingly contaminated food supply plays in the health of our children - from the pesticides being poured onto our food crops in the field, to the synthetic chemicals being added to our processed foods in production.  Independent science, along with the President’s Cancer Panel and the American Academy of Pediatrics, highlight the role that these non-food ingredients now going into our food supply are having on the health of our loved ones.

So while our food looks the same, a growing body of scientific research is telling us that it is not.  It is painfully revealing to us that it is loaded with additives and all kinds of chemicals.  And we don't  know what the combination of these chemicals will do to a little boy with asthma or to a mother who is pregnant with her first child.  Nor do we know what the long-term impact of these added ingredients might be to the health of a child with autism.

In light of the growing number of children who now have asthma, diabetes, ADHD, autism or allergies, can we afford to continue to take this risk, while other countries around the world exercise precaution?

It is this growing body of scientific evidence on these new ingredients that is prompting other countries to take action and remove these ingredients from their food supplies, as consumer awareness grows, especially from the food fed to children.  In other words, in other developed countries, precaution is exercised as people take priority over profits.

But  not here.

At least, not yet.

Because while we can't change the beginning of our stories, we can change the end.  Each and every single one of us has the ability to affect remarkable change.  For some, it might be simply changing a few items in their grocery cart, for others, it might be reaching out to a child's school and for another, it might be reaching out to a member of Congress or the FDA or sending a letter to the CEO of a food company.

No matter what we choose to do, it is in doing something, together, leveraging our collective talents, that we will create change.

The future of our country is dependent on the health of our children.  They are “adults in waiting,” and while they are only 30% of our population, they are 100% of our future.

The economic prosperity, national security and future innovation and productivity of our country are 100% contingent on their health.  Let's value it accordingly.

Follow Robyn on Twitter @unhealthytruth or on Facebook.