FOOD- Are Americans aware of people scared of & protesting against WHAT WE EAT???

[underpants]

This story has received scant coverage here on DU or anywhere in the MSM

Think about this. Massive and I mean MASSIVE demonstrations in South Korea in some part against President Lee but they don't trust our food and with good reason they don't trust our regulation process and system. Hell I DON'T

There are people screaming at the top of their lungs AND BANNING the food we eat!!!!!!

________________________________________________

Why did South Korea decide to lift the ban this year?

In April, during his first official summit with President Bush, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak finalized a deal that would have eventually allowed a full range of U.S. beef to be shipped to South Korea. The deal was aimed at achieving a broader South Korean goal: a sweeping free-trade agreement with the U.S. Several U.S. lawmakers said they wouldn't approve the trade pact unless South Korea first reinstated U.S. beef imports.

Why has the decision to restart U.S. beef imports sparked such outrage?

Many South Koreans felt the deal failed to do enough to ensure food safety. But underlying the widespread protests is South Korean frustration with President Lee, a former businessman elected on a promise to pump up the Korean economy.

"Lee has behaved too much like a chairman of the board, acting imperiously and with little regard for pubic opinion on a number of issues, the most prominent of which has been the U.S. beef-import decision," writes Leonardo Martinez-Diaz, a political economy fellow for the Brookings Institution. On Wednesday, all members of Lee's Cabinet offered to resign in response to the mass demonstrations. Lee has not said whether he plans to accept their resignations.

What steps will the U.S. take to assure South Korea that American beef and other agricultural exports are safe?

U.S. agricultural officials say they stand by the safety of American beef. Keith Williams, a spokesman for the USDA, says federal inspectors are a fixture in meat plants in the U.S., examining daily operations as mandated by law. "Meat plants cannot operate unless there are U.S. inspectors right there in the plant," he says.

The World Organization for Animal Health has classified the U.S. as a "controlled risk nation" when it comes to mad cow disease — a designation that means a country has effective safeguards in place to ensure the safety of the meats it exports, according to the USDA's Web site.

Joe Schuele, spokesman for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, says, "We have all the control measures in place and have taken all the appropriate actions that we can take to control and eradicate the disease."

There have been three confirmed cases of mad cow disease in the United States. The first case, in December 2003, involved a cow that had been imported from Canada to Washington. The second and third cases involved cows native to the U.S.; these occurred in Texas in June 2005, and in Alabama in March 2006, according to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

Are there objections to U.S. meats in other foreign countries?

Yes. The European Union has a ban on beef raised with the use of hormones, which effectively bars most U.S. beef imports. U.S. beef that can be certified as hormone-free is allowed. In addition, the EU blocks imports of U.S. pork produced with a growth hormone. Since 1997, U.S. poultry treated with chlorine and other chemicals has also been banned. The annual loss in poultry revenue is approximately $220 million, according to the Foreign Agricultural Service U.S. Mission to the European Union.

"It's been a long and tortuous process that USDA has embarked on to try and reopen those markets," says Tony Corbo, a senior lobbyist with Food & Water Watch, a consumer safety group.

Japan has also banned imports of U.S. beef from cattle older than 21 months. The U.S., however, is negotiating to raise that limit to 30 months, Corbo says. Mad cow has rarely been detected in animals younger than 21 months, so many countries feel mad cow disease will not be a problem in animals younger than that. The United States' safety standards regard animals younger than 30 months as safe for consumption, since the number of cases in animals up to 30 months in age is still extremely small.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91441586

[L0oniX]

1. Beef is not my only concern. I am getting tired of having to read every label and then ...

go figure if they are omitting or lying about anything. I have banned sucrolos, splenda, aspartame, saccrin, nutrasweet, any artificial sweetener, msg, high fructose corn syrup and my list is growing.

[underpants]

2. high fructose corn syrup is a toughy

I went to get hot dog buns last night and saw HFCS in there (this is news to a non-cooker like me)

We drew the line with wheat glutin. There is none in our house and never will be.

[L0oniX]

3. High fructose corn syrup is what is making a lot of people fat according to my wife.

It's tough to find any drink with out that stuff but I did find Welch's Naturals which advertizes "no high fructose corn syrup" on the label. I also drink that green tea with honey stuff.

[underpants]

7. HFCS sticks to ribs

It is a huge part of it.

Of course it wouldn't be necessary if BIG SUGAR's lobby didn't set the price floor-we pay way more than anyone else in the world for sugar.

[Hissyspit]

9. I believe Tropicana Fruit Squeeze.

It uses sucralose - Splenda, which may be objectionable but can't be as a bad as Aspartame, Rumsfeld's rat poison.

They are mostly water, though. No carbonation, some fruit juice, only 20 calories, some artificial coloring.

[L0oniX]

19. Sucralose was developed as a pesticide when it was discovered by accident ....

that it tasted sweet.

[conscious evolution]

22. I believe it also causes diabetes.

I know for a fact that it causes ADD.Seen a study done for a very large food/bev corporation.Wish I could get my hands on that report again.It would be all over the net.

[spinbaby]

4. Nothing wrong with wheat gluten

The good stuff--not the God-knows-what from China. It's just the protein component from wheat. We buy it by the bag from King Arthur Flour and use it in bread baking.

[underpants]

5. Right

we took all the processed kind out. We don't use that much --maybe my wife needs to bake more :bounce:

[KansDem]

6. HFCS is EVERYWHERE!

Recently, I went out for breakfast and as I waited for my food I looked around at what other people were eating that I knew or suspected(?) contained HFCS:

Imitation maple syrup
Ketchup
Jams and jellies
Soft drinks
Steak sauce
Pancake batter (?)
Bread (toast)
Biscuits (?)

Go to the bread aisle of any major grocery store and look at the ingredients. Chances are you'll have to look long and hard to find a loaf of bread that doesn't have HFCS.

That stuff is everywhere!

[Liberal Dose]

10. HFCS in bread just floors me. I have yet to bake a loaf of bread and have a need to add it,

but nearly every loaf in the store lists it as an ingredient. :wtf:

[underpants]

11. Sugar is used a lot in baking

I am told.

HFCS is used as a substitute for sugar because it is cheaper. BIG SUGAR as it is called has established price floors on sugar-the price can never go LOWER than that amount. For you or me that is no big deal, how many pounds of sugar do you buy a year? It is about $1 more than it should be. Now if you buy truckloads on a daily basis (like a bakery or food manufacturer) you are going to find a cheaper alternative....like HFCS

Corn is the enemy

It is a money losing crop other than govt incentives and the like
It is not paid to market it is paid to yield-meaning the more you make the more money you get so people are plowing over hedgerows and "watering holes" for migratory birds (this brings them into the farm which will be how bird flus will spread into the population).
Pesticides (like for corn) are made from Petroleum
Fertilizers (like for corn) are made from natural gas
It all ends up in the waterways ( I haven't even covered how irrigation is graining the formerly giant aquafer in the upper mid-West) and it ends up in the Mississippi river and in the gulf where a giant Dead Zone has developed where no fish or shellfish can exist because all of the oxygen in the water is drained by a super-algae. Fishermen have to burn more, you guessed it, gas to motor out to where they can catch fish.
There is more. Trust me, like ethanol.

Corn is the enemy.

[kath]

13. How are you avoiding wheat gluten - since it's in almost all packaged bread products

(except English muffins). Were you able to find hot dog buns without wheat gluten?

I was trying to avoid wheat gluten months back after the original scare, but pretty much threw up my hands in disgust when I realized how incredibly pervasive it is. SHort of making all your own bread and buns, it's pretty hard to stay away from.

[underpants]

16. I got some gluten free hot dog buns last night at Kroger

I can't remember the name (regular brand) but there was no wheat gluten in them-whole wheat hot dog buns. High Fructose Corn Syrup yes but no Wheat Gluten.

My wife did some research and found lots of stuff with no wheat gluten. More expensive yes but not hugely as far as I know.

BTW check out these



freeze drid and then baked. Straight from ground to your cupboard. They are really good.

[truedelphi]

8. UP (If I can use a touch of the familliar) Our local public TV station channel eight

Has been taken over by a young revolutionary.

A couple of nights ago he broadcast a TV show whose moderator discussed how come things are changing so fast, and not for the better.

Here is the story -

On the Federal level, in legislative terms, Our country is governed by three things:

Acts - which require a two thirds vote in the Senate.
Agreements - which require a one half approval in the Senate

And regulations - which can control every guldarn facet of some major part of our lives - and they are left up to the whim and "imagination" of whoever is in charge of an agency.

Right now, organic farmers are suffering under a slew of regulations, including a regulation that requires them to bulldoze under an entire field of organic produce if some ag inspecter detects, say a bird landing in the field where the crops are!!

[underpants]

12. I am just starting to read up on that

I know that I have read in some "Earthy" publications that lots of farmers are not getting the USDA (or is it FDA) organic approval because of just this sort of thing. You and I both know that it isn't from overscrupulous organic types either.

[truedelphi]

14. The USDA and FDA would love to stymie the organics movement

And if a farmer manages to comply - think abt what that means - the farmer is making it impossible for a bird to land on their field (or a rabbit to browse, or a deer to shelter in an adjoining section of pines!!)

To me organic means that the whole ecology is loved and cherished. If wildlife has to be treated like the enemy for the sake of thiese ridiculous guidelines - YIKES!!

[GoneOffShore]

15. I'm afraid of American beef and won't eat it

Unless it's grass fed, locally grown and I know the farmer.

Eating feed lot beef, industrial pork and factory raised chickens is kind of like playing Russian roulette with 3 chambers out of six loaded (Exaggeration - I know that).

[Cleita]

17. I don't think Americans realize that all the real safety checks in place that kept

our food safe have gone the way of the dodo. Mostly what is done is inadequate. I try to buy as much my fresh food from local suppliers as much as I'm able to. I read carefully the labels on packaged food and pretty much don't buy stuff made in China or other countries that I'm not sure about their safety standards.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. That's why I buy only pasture-raised meat from local farmers,

free-range eggs, and milk from undrugged cows, and try to avoid HFCS.

I'm lucky. I have a food co-op just down the street, and I'm able to pay a bit more for wholesome food.

[BlooInBloo]

20. I eat pretty much whatever's in the store.

[Runcible Spoon]

21. I had banned all industrial meat from my diet. Now I live in Argentina.

it's an amazing feeling to sit at a restaurant and not worry about where your meal came from. Hell, they even give the cattle beer right before the slaughter.