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GREEN HOME SHOW #37: Healthy Organic Food: Part 1 Top 10 Reasons to Eat Local Organic Food
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The following content is from THE GREAT GREEN HOME SHOW #37.
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The content of the GGHS is solely the responsibility of the ECF and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of WILM, its sponsors or Clear Channel Radio. Any rebroadcast, reproduction or use of the Great Green Home Show or its contents without written permission from the Green Fox, Paul Hughes, Doug Hunt, Aunt Jean, Brenna Wallace, Brooke Chase, the Watson Brothers, The Snap and the Sin City Band is strictly prohibited.
Overall Segment #1 – 9:00
Music & Introduction – 5:00
Introduction – Good Morning !!! Welcome to another edition of the Great Green Home Show...
Hey you!... yeah you on the couch… yes, I'm talking to you. Listen, the weather's been lousy lately, but if you’ve gotten outside in the last few days, you know that spring’s coming. So we’re going to start talking about a few spring things this morning. With the weather cooperating, it seems appropriate to start looking ahead. So now that I have your attention, let's get to it. As always, we’ll try to stay up-to-date and get the best research on the most relevant green topics of the day. We’ll bring you the latest green news and the best information and present it in a format that is entertaining and digestible. We have a very interesting show today that will include all of the usual stuff… green tips, green news updates, green data, etc… and this week’s theme is all about organic food, it’s incredibly rapid growth, and what’s good and bad about it.
Is there something bad about organic food? I don’t know… you’re just going to have to hang around and listen, aren’t you? Anyway, we have fantastic guests, Dave Kelso of Albert’s Organics and Jay Totman of Natural by Nature’s Dairy. Together they going to talk about the organic food market, where to buy organics, how to make sure it really is organic, and tasty, juicy tidbits, including “what's the difference between eating organic and just eating healthy and green?”. It should be a great discussion! So grab your organic, fair trade coffee, pull up a chair and let's get on with the show.
I’m Doug Hunt and next to me is my co-host, Paul Hughes. What’s hot? Forget what’s red hot… I want to know what’s Green hot this week?
Paul: There is always something green going on, on this planet my ever space traveling co host...I think I found a definitive explanation and one of the best articles that's been written lately about how the originally great idea of ethanol from corn has turned out to be not so great an idea in so many ways. I think it's important to go over because the detrimental effects of producing ethanol from food stock are much farther reaching than we thought. I'm going to read most of the article that was written by Lester Brown of the World Watch Institute.
Most of the time we research our articles by using at least three or four or five sources, but no one writes better on this stuff that Lester Brown, so why try to improve it. Since we are talking about organics and we are talking about feeding the people of the of the earth healthy food let us take a look at how grain based ethanol affects the food market.
Lester Brown writes: We are witnessing the beginning of one of the great tragedies of history. The United States, in a misguided effort to reduce its oil insecurity by converting grain into fuel for cars, is generating global food insecurity on a scale never seen before. The world is facing the most severe food price inflation in history as grain and soybean prices climb to all-time highs. Wheat trading on the Chicago Board of Trade on December 17th breached the $10 per bushel level for the first time ever. In mid-January, corn was trading over $5 per bushel, close to its historic high. And on January 11th, soybeans traded at $13.42 per bushel, the highest price ever recorded. All these prices are double those of a year or two ago.
As a result, prices of food products made directly from these commodities such as bread, pasta, and tortillas, and those made indirectly, such as pork, poultry, beef, milk, and eggs, are everywhere on the rise. In Mexico, corn meal prices are up 60 percent. In Pakistan, flour prices have doubled. China is facing rampant food price inflation, some of the worst in decades.
In industrial countries, the higher processing and marketing share of food costs has softened the blow, but even so, prices of food staples are climbing. By late 2007, the U.S. price of a loaf of whole wheat bread was 12 percent higher than a year earlier, milk was up 29 percent, and eggs were up 36 percent. In Italy, pasta prices were up 20 percent.
From 1990 to 2005, world grain consumption, driven largely by population growth and rising consumption of grain-based animal products, climbed by an average of 21 million tons per year. Then came the explosion in demand for grain used in U.S. ethanol distilleries, which jumped from 54 million tons in 2006 to 81 million tons in 2007. This 27 million ton jump more than doubled the annual growth in world demand for grain. If 80 percent of the 62 distilleries now under construction are completed by late 2008, grain used to produce fuel for cars will climb to 114 million tons, or 28 percent of the projected 2008 U.S. grain harvest.
Historically the food and energy economies have been largely separate, but now with the construction of so many fuel ethanol distilleries, they are merging. If the food value of grain is less than its fuel value, the market will move the grain into the energy economy. Thus as the price of oil rises, the price of grain follows it upward.
A University of Illinois economics team calculates that with oil at $50 a barrel, it is profitable—with the ethanol subsidy of 51¢ a gallon (equal to $1.43 per bushel of corn)—to convert corn into ethanol as long as the price is below $4 a bushel. But with oil at $100 a barrel, distillers can pay more than $7 a bushel for corn and still break even. If oil climbs to $140, distillers can pay $10 a bushel for corn—double the early 2008 price of $5 per bushel.
The World Bank reports that for each 1 percent rise in food prices, caloric intake among the poor drops 0.5 percent. Millions of those living on the lower rungs of the global economic ladder, people who are barely hanging on, will lose their grip and begin to fall off. Whereas previous dramatic rises in world grain prices were weather-induced, this one is policy-induced and can be dealt with by policy adjustments. The crop fuels program that currently satisfies scarcely 3 percent of U.S. gasoline needs is simply not worth the human suffering and political chaos it is causing. If the entire U.S. grain harvest were converted into ethanol, it would satisfy scarcely 18 percent of our automotive fuel needs.
The irony is that U.S. taxpayers, by subsidizing the conversion of grain into ethanol, are in effect financing a rise in their own food prices. It is time to end the subsidy for converting food into fuel and to do it quickly before the deteriorating world food situation gets worse. I had to cut out some of that article, it was much longer... it went on about the political unrest and the export restrictions in many countries that are already being imposed worldwide this year on grain and rice, because of lower food stocks that are left from last year's harvest.
We always say we don't try and do doom and gloom here... everybody knows that we need to conserve and to enact sustainable and renewable policies as soon as possible. I just thought it was important to let people know why we rant and rave about grain-based ethanol or agro-fuels as we call them here. I think this article sums it up pretty well. So on a lighter note,... Doug, remind us of that great green expo on March 29....
Doug: “The Great Green Expo” on March 29th at the Chase Riverfront Center. I cannot express how important it is for everyone to attend this expo. Not only will it be a lot of fun, it’ll also be interesting and informative… you know, green vendors, cars, speakers, stuff for the kids… but most importantly, by attending, you let the powers that be know that the population of people who care about how we live and treat the planet is growing rapidly. It’s important to stand up and be counted! And I promise… it’ll be worth attending. So tell all your friends, church members, co-workers, hair dresser, milk man and pet sitter. If you come to this thing and some how… some way… manage not to have a good time… I will let you buy me lunch and yell at me!!! Be there!!! “The Great Green Expo” on March 29th at the Chase Riverfront Center. Before we get started, we need to thank our sponsors… Paul?
Paul: Thanks to: – CMI Solar Electric......Energy Services Group....... Suntrust Mortgage of Christiana...Myecoagent.com and Option Insurance Group. Also, Mark Unruh for the great music… Protect us Doug…
Today’s Topic - 3:30 Sponsored by: CMI Solar Electric
Top 10 Reasons to Eat Local Organic Food
- Were pretty sure that if you start eating the local organic food you will feel better because you will be eating food that was sprayed with less pesticides. Actually, if it's really organic there won’t be any pesticides. Sometimes they use this soap to keep the bugs off of it and I can help with your digestion too, just kidding
- It’s always fun to stop at a roadside stand and talk tofu turkey with the local produce guy.
- Local produce creates less carbon in our atmosphere from shipping vegetables and fruits from other locations… and less carbon in the air is good.
- Buying local organic produce supports our local farmers and keeps some of our grocery money in our community. Also by supporting our local farmers, we’re helping to preserve our local farmland and rural communities.
- By supporting our local farmers and using less pesticides to produce our food we are working to help keep the water quality in our aquifers cleaner.
- Organic dairy products are better for you. The cows are not injected with any hormones which can affect the quality of food you drink and eat, or give us older men larger breasts. And let’s face it… people are getting bigger because of our ingestion of hormones. The average defensive linemen 20 years ago was 50 to 70 lbs smaller than the lineman of today. Where do you think that came from?
- Local organics are fresher, taste better, and have more vitamins and minerals that make you more virile… you feel like Superman... although I'm still not eating brussels sprouts.
- By canning your local organic produce you are setting up a more nutritious diet for the winter. And you're saving a lot of money and giving the local farmers another revenue stream.
- By becoming a CSA member of your local organic farm you're contributing to the growth of local farming and you meet a lot of nice new friends when you go to pick up your weekly allotment of produce.
- You’ll live longer, become more intelligent, become more attractive, and generally have better smelling breath.