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Organic VS Conventional VS GMO

I ran across a great explanation of how to use the PLU on produce to figure out exactly how it was grown.  The article also goes on to explain how many conventionally grown fruits and vegetables are just fine as long as they are thoroughly cleaned before eating.  Of course there are some forms of produce which you are better off going organic for, other forms, as long as they are non GMO can be grown conventionally, want to know how you can tell if your local produce is grown organically, conventionally or genetically modified?  Tonawanda News shared the following info:

All produce will have a four- or five-digit code, as well as a barcode. If the produce has a four-digit code, it is conventionally grown but not organic. Sometimes this is just fine, but more on that later. 

If your produce has a five-digit code beginning with “9,” this identifies an organically grown product. Be wary of the number “8,” as this identifies genetically altered foods. Our bodies do not recognize genetically altered foods. These foods are making us sick more than they are helping us. This is a very hot topic in our country right now.

Buying organic is not always necessary if you know which foods tend to be clean or considered safe. The following is a list of “clean” choices that do not have to be bought organically: asparagus, avocado, cabbage, corn (non-GMO), eggplant, grapefruit, kiwi, mango, mushrooms, onion, papaya, sweet peas (frozen included) and sweet potatoes.

The following foods are best when bought organically. These include: apples, celery, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, blueberries, grapes, nectarines, peaches, potatoes, spinach, strawberries, sweet and hot peppers, kale and zucchini. These tend to be more contaminated during the growing process from the use of pesticides.

Stomach Virus Cyclospora Outbreak Linked To OLIVE GARDEN & RED LOBSTER Restaurants

Yet Another Reason to go Organic

According to Natural News:

After reviewing 41 published studies examining the nutritional content of conventional and organically grown crops, certified nutrition specialist Virginia Worthington discovered organic food rated significantly higher. Findings include greater levels of vitamin C (27 percent), iron (21.1 percent), magnesium (29.3 percent) and phosphorus (13.6 percent). She also notes that organic crops had lower nitrates and heavy metal contamination. Worthington's results can be found in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

Likewise, a study led by Alyson Mitchell at the University of California-Davis found free radical scavenging flavonoids were notably higher in organic tomatoes. Over the course of ten years, organically produced tomatoes were compared to their conventional counterpart. The organic fruit was shown to contain between 79 and 97 percent more flavonoid, aglycones, quercetin and kaempferol than conventionally grown tomatoes.

Sometimes I feel as if scientific studies are just proving what common sense already tells us.  

Federal Government Stealing Farmers Raisins

"You can't work for a whole year and then give 47 percent of what you made away and still keep that business afloat"

According to Natural News:

Recently declared by Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan to be "the world's most outdated law," a little known U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) policy that steals up to half of American raisin farmers' harvest while providing little or no compensation in return is currently being challenged in federal court. As reported by Reason.com, a California couple has sued the USDA, claiming that the policy not only violates the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but also threatens to put small raisin farmers like themselves out of business.

It is known as an agriculture marketing order, and it was established back in the 1930s during the Great Depression as a way to stabilize raisin prices during a unique time when food markets were extremely volatile. A product of the infamous and sweeping New Deal, the agriculture marketing order for raisins established a special government committee responsible for both deciding the price and yield for raisins every year, and confiscating the remaining raisins for export overseas -- and this committee still exists today.

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Perhaps the most shocking aspect of this outdated policy -- it is really just a form of legalized robbery by the federal government, by the way -- is that up to half of the domestic raisin harvest is confiscated every year under direct orders from the USDA, with no compensation given to farmers in return.

Absolute insanity.  Does the government go to the pharmaceutical industry and take half of their stock in order to sell at lower prices?  Do they break in to Cupertino and steal half of Apple's iPhones?  Do they run amok of Walmart and take half of their inventory?  I think not.  

So why in the world do they have any right to steal half of a farmers very hard earned products?  

They don't.  The US Federal Government is one big illegal racket.  Most of you just allow it to flourish and care so very little that they get away with it.  

Fruit and Vegetables Prescription Program

Wowzers.  NYC is in the news, for something positive!  This is coming from someone who spent their first 27 years of life living in New York, so my bias comes from a very well rounded experience of the state.  There are alot of nice places in NY,  Montauk Point, Lake George, Woodstock, the Adirondack's, etc etc etc.  However NY is a very big place, and there are alot of people there making it very unwelcome.  

When I lived there I thought that the discriminations against New Yorkers were unfair, now that I am outside of that bubble I realize that many of them are spot on.  They are rude, hectic, drive like manics, snotty, egotistical, and they pay a fortune to live in a place that ... if you ask me... isn't even that nice.  Any idiot who is willing to pay $3000 a month to live in what might as well be a walk in closet, deserves whatever other terrible things happen to them.  

Gun confiscation, massive under employment, over population, "terrorist" attacks, quick spread of disease, and overwhelming taxes, are just the first few things that come to mind when I think of New York.  One last word on my hatred for NY then I will get to the point.  Earlier this month when exiting JFK Airport the first thing that hit me was a distinct smell of piss and humidity.  If any other two words better exemplify New York than "piss" and "humidity" I am not quiet sure what they are.  

With all of that hatred spewed, somehow doctors in New York are leading the way in a program that prescribes fresh produce to fight off certain conditions.   Shocking, I know, your diet actually has an impact on your health.  Prescription drugs are not the only manner to fight disease!  According to Natural News :

The "Fruit and Vegetables Prescription Program," allows doctors to "prescribe" fresh fruit and vegetables to overweight or obese patients by giving them "Health Bucks" that are redeemable at local farmer's markets.

This program makes New York City the largest U.S. city to officially acknowledge that fruits and vegetables have a role to play in preventing chronic degenerative disease -- an idea that the FDA insists is delusional. According to the FDA, there is no such thing as any fruit, vegetable, supplement or superfood that has any ability whatsoever to prevent, treat or cure any disease.

Sure, the FDA's belief is ancient history in terms of present-day knowledge about nutrition and disease, but it's still federal policy. And according to the FDA, the mere "prescribing" of a food as something to prevent obesity automatically transforms that food into a "drug." Under current FDA regulations, then, NYC is guilty of promoting "unapproved drugs" which are really just fruits and vegetables. But that's how FDA logic works.

Fukushima's Mutated Fruits and Vegetables

Check out more images of the deformed produce at the following link.  

According to MSN.com:

It might be wise to steer clear of vegetables from Japan's Fukushima area for, oh, say a few hundred years. A Korean website assembled this image collection of produce from towns and villages surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. And they are NOT pretty pictures. From Siamese-twinned corn cobs to what can only be called peaches with elephantiasis, the region's agriculture appears to have taken a heavy radiation hit from the nuclear disaster in 2011. It's not clear yet what effect eating the produce might have on the population, but you never know. It could be pretty dangerous, but you never know — in an ideal world, maybe it could give you superpowers.