Growing Food Connections Launches a Website to Train Communities in Food Systems Planning. With information on continuing education, doctoral programs in food systems planning and policy at Ohio State University and University at Buffalo and student internship opportunities, the website also supports Growing Food Connections’ goal to develop an educational framework for the next generation of food systems planners.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

Very little fat on this baby!

Learn how to make biodegradable seed starting kits out of newspaper.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

On the issue of pink slime, it’s not as if the food industry saw the light, they just felt the heat! The main supplier of ammoniated pink slime, Beef Products, Inc., has been spiraling down. But now there’s a good chance you are eating some of the other unappetizing ingredients that simply don’t belong in our food. Trusting the food industry to help you make healthy choices can be a big mistake. Here are some more of the ways by which food suppliers continue to lose credibility.

Azodicarbonamide in Bread

This “dough conditioner” is the same chemical used to make yoga mats, shoe soles, and other rubbery objects. Azodicarbonamide is banned in Europe and Australia and its use carries a prison sentence in Singapore. When azodicarbonamide is baked in bread, it produces the carcinogen urethane. While Subway announced it is “in the process of removing azodicarbonamide as part of our bread improvement efforts,” the dough conditioner is also used in food at McDonald’s, Burger King, Starbucks, Arby’s, Wendy’s, Jack in the Box and Chick-fil-A. It is also in grocery store and restaurant breads, CNN says.

Plastic Microbeads in Fish

Plastic microbeads are used in toothpaste, liquid hand soaps, skin exfoliators, other personal care products, and industrial cleaners. Last year the microbeads were found in water samples in three of the Great Lakes. The beads work their way up the marine food chain where they “absorb and retain chemical contaminants,” says the Chicago Tribune.

Brominated Vegetable Oil in Beverages

The oil, from corn or soy, is bonded with the element bromine which is used in couches and carpets as a flame retardant. Bromide is an endocrine disruptor and part of the halide family which includes fluorine, chlorine and iodine. It competes for the same receptors in the body as iodine and can cause iodine deficiency among other things.

High Fructose Corn Syrup and Artificial Sweeteners in ,  ,  ,   Pretty Much Everything

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is cheaper for soft drink and bread makers to use and store than “real sugar” It has been linked to liver damage, diabetes, heart problems, obesity and even mercury consumption. Yet, aspartame, saccharin and acesulfame potassium, three leading artificial sweeteners, have all been linked to cancer.

A 2011 study by the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine found that people who drank one diet soda every day had a 61 percent higher chance of having a heart attack or stroke. Questions also persist about artificial sweeteners’ links to Alzheimer’s disease, autism, chronic fatigue syndrome, lupus, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.

Transglutaminase Also Known as “Meat Glue”

Meat glue is transglutaminase, an adhesive powder originally obtained from animal blood, but lately more likely to come from fermented bacteria which is cheaper. Meat glue lets chefs cobble together disparate and low-quality scraps of meat, put it in the refrigerator overnight and produce “filet mignon.”

Up to 35 percent of food products contain meat glue, including tofu, milk, yogurt and even cereal according to industry accounts. Animal versions of meat glue in which the coagulation animal protein thrombin is combined with fibrin have affected blood clotting time in humans because bovine thrombin can cross-react with human factors.

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Food providers that have engaged in food fraud, or have been slipping such poisonous ingredients into your food, are not worthy of your trust or patronage, ever!

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

Obesity and diabetes are epidemic, and yet the only relevant fact on which relatively unambiguous data exist to support a consensus is that most of us are surely eating too much of something.

In 1960, fewer than 13 percent of Americans were obese, and diabetes had been diagnosed in 1 percent. Today, the percentage of obese Americans has almost tripled; the percentage of Americans with diabetes has increased sevenfold.

Meanwhile, the research literature on obesity has also ballooned. In 1960, fewer than 1,100 articles were published on obesity or diabetes in the indexed medical literature. Last year it was more than 44,000. In total, over 600,000 articles have been published purporting to convey some meaningful information on these conditions.

It would be nice to think that this deluge of research has brought clarity to the issue. The trend data argue otherwise. If we understand these disorders so well, why have we failed so miserably to prevent them? The conventional explanation is that this is the manifestation of an unfortunate reality: Type 2 diabetes is caused or exacerbated by obesity, and obesity is a complex, intractable disorder. The more we learn, the more we need to know.

Here’s another possibility: The 600,000 articles — along with several tens of thousands of diet books — are the noise generated by a dysfunctional research establishment. Because the nutrition research community has failed to establish reliable, unambiguous knowledge about the environmental triggers of obesity and diabetes, it has opened the door to a diversity of opinions on the subject, of hypotheses about cause, cure and prevention, many of which cannot be refuted by the existing evidence. Everyone has a theory. The evidence doesn’t exist to say unequivocally who’s wrong.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

When we align our objectives with the Divine will, when we strive for the attainment of a worthy goal, when we begin our work with a well defined plan, and when we have ability to work together with others effectively, we have already achieved the trajectory for success. For we know that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Learn how to enjoy boundless opportunity and unlimited progress!

Net-Neutrality is the principle that data packets on the Internet should be moved impartially, without regard to content, destination or source.

Throughout the history of the United States “Freedom of the Press” has been touted as a fundamental right when, in fact, such freedom has truly existed only for the one who owns the press. Anyone who’s watched the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington will clearly understand the democracy implications of a dollar skewed Internet.

In light of certain events of the last decade, it is clear that the Internet changed the dynamic and made the First Amendment guarantee real for the first time in U.S. history.

In January, three federal judges, in Verizon versus FCC, struck down the net-neutrality rules put in place by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) in 2010. The rules had been designed to prevent the nation’s largest broadband service providers from charging content companies for access to Internet “fast lanes”. The ruling allows Internet service providers (ISPs) to sell faster download speeds to the highest bidder — even if access to other websites slows to a crawl.

Web activists around the world assert that access to the Internet is now a fundamental human right. Thus it is important to ensure that the Internet remains a free and open platform that promotes innovation, competition and consumer interests.

It is clear from the opinion written by Judge David Tatel, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, that some consideration was given to the issue of consumer choice. But the analysis is, for the most part, focused on average connection speeds and not content.

The nightmare scenario occurs when the corporatocracy, accountable only to its investors, is itself vested with the power to act as the “gatekeeper,” when it becomes the arbiter of culture and speech.

Judge Tatel clearly placed the notion of “consumer choice” on a plane of unreality, for unless the consumer is informed, there is no meaningful exercise of choice. For example, the consumer of national news would have no way of knowing if Verizon was giving the Fox News website a faster pop because its front page featured an article favorable to Verizon on the issue of Net-Neutrality.

We have all witnessed the effects of integrity challenged journalism. We have regularly consumed a “journalistic” product that contains a highly selective filtration, amplification, and contextualization of the facts. It is already next to impossible to locate an honest broker of information. This is the proximate cause for the integrity deficit in government. If you were to place the average elected “representative” on the stage of the Scanning Transmission Electron Holography Microscope, you would be unable to detect any form of statesmanship.

I am sure that, in the wake of this latest attack on the First Amendment, there will be abundant posturing on Capitol Hill. But, it is important to develop a high contrast image in this particular case. There are friends of the First Amendment, and it has its enemies. The FCC should have classified the common carriers of Internet traffic as Common Carriers. And, it is widely suspected that any effort towards re-classification will face insurmountable roadblocks.

The electorate can simply acquiesce, as it has done so many times in the past, or it can exercise its considerable powers of Consumer Sovereignty. It needs to make the determination that this is the First Amendment issue of our time, and that any politicians blocking the re-classification effort should be pried from their form fitting seats for cause. That cause would be a fundamental betrayal of The Constitution they swore an oath to uphold.

© Robert H. Kalk

The Disruptive Influence of Microfinancing

Ten percent of the world has access to traditional banking. And traditional banks often refuse to finance low-income or unemployed entrepreneurs, no matter how viable their ideas are.

Now, enabled by the spread of mobile technology and wireless internet access, microfinancing organizations are attempting to eradicate this problem through small loans given to impoverished people who need the finances to become self-sufficient.

In the past 30 years, microfinance loans have brought banking to more than half a billion people, and that number is growing even more rapidly today. Startups, nonprofits, big companies—they’re all jumping on the opportunity to alleviate poverty throughout the world with three primary models for microfinancing.

• Collective repayment: The Grameen Bank model originally used group-lending, or microcredit, in which small groups of community members were bound to borrowers by a moral guarantee in lieu of the collateral required by traditional banks. This model of social responsibility worked well in Bangladesh, and many countries localize the model to fit their ethics and needs.

• Micro-banks and microfinance institutions: For-profit models include rural micro-banks that vary depending on the community and location. One example is India’s ICICI Bank, which has subsidiaries in Europe and Asia that provide microcredit and microfinance loans. Micro-banks also exist in the U.S., and have a hard time competing here because of major competition. But in developing countries, they can fare well as the only option. Other microfinance institutions include schools, nonprofits, and agencies.

• Peer-to-peer lending: Nonprofit organizations like Zidisha and Kiva are examples of peer-to-peer lending. Zidisha is a database of borrowers that lenders speak with directly. No one censors the information or requests. Kiva, on the other hand, uses microfinance institutions on the ground to take care of the loan requests, though they have just launched the Zip model, which is more direct. They also censor and edit borrowers’ descriptions on the website for clarity.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

When we align our objectives with the Divine will, when we strive for the attainment of a worthy goal, when we begin our work with a well defined plan, and when we have ability to work together with others effectively, we have already achieved the trajectory for success. For we know that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Learn how to enjoy boundless opportunity and unlimited progress!

Material scientists are now using the technology to create new super strong materials that may be used one day in building lightweight, yet powerful, structures. MarkForged announced that it had created a carbon fiber 3D printer.

Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology revealed that is has invented a new material that’s lighter than water, yet stronger than steel. It achieved this by using a 3D printer to create a material similar to bone. The researchers used 3D laser lithography – a kind of 3D printing that creates objects out of light sensitive resin. This technology allowed the team to create a porous material like that seen in bone where the space in between the solids is small enough to make a difference in weight, but not enough to affect its strength.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

When we align our objectives with the Divine will, when we strive for the attainment of a worthy goal, when we begin our work with a well defined plan, and when we have ability to work together with others effectively, we have already achieved the trajectory for success. For we know that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Learn how to enjoy boundless opportunity and unlimited progress!

What are the food security implications of the ever worsening drought?

“Increasingly intense droughts in California, all of the Southwest, and even into the Midwest have everything to do with human-made climate change.” So says climatologist James Hansen, who co-authored one of the earliest studies on this subject back in 1990.

The food security implications of this are staggering in light of the way we currently farm on a land area roughly equal to the size of South America. Experts say we would have to add another Brazil to that land mass to feed the people expected to arrive by 2050.

Figuring out how to feed nine billion people by mid-century in a Dust-Bowl-ifying world is the task at hand. Working to slash carbon pollution and avoid the worst climate impact scenarios is a big enough challenge.

A 2009 NOAA-led paper warned that, for the Southwestern United States and many semi-arid regions around the world, “the climate change that is taking place because of increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop.” Impacts that should be expected if we don’t aggressively slash carbon pollution “are irreversible dry-season rainfall reductions in several regions comparable to those of the ‘dust bowl’ era.”

So what’s a body of six or nine billion to do? It’s clear a great humanity can’t turn on a dime. But we can begin to future-proof our food supply. And, we can discuss just how that may be accomplished right here.

To learn more about the ideas for transitioning that are already out there, visit our Modular Agriculture page.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word choreographed an assembly of amino acids into an exquisite array of specific proteins. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” In so doing God demonstrated a penchant for genomic writing, preceeded by an amazing series of prebiotic events, in a highly orchestrated presentation of evolutionary overcontrol.

More about God’s Handiwork!

A report from Gartner says that 3D printing will create debate on ethics and regulation. Furthermore, analysts expect that rapid development of 3D Bioprinters will spark calls to ban the technology for human and non-human use by 2016.

3D bioprinting is the medical application of 3D printing to produce living tissue and organs. It is progressing so quickly that it analysts at Gartner believe it will spark a major ethical debate on its use by 2016. Additionally, according to the same report, 3D printing of non-living medical devices such as prosthetic limbs, combined with a burgeoning population and insufficient levels of healthcare in emerging markets, is likely to cause an explosion in demand for the technology by 2015.

“3D bioprinting facilities with the ability to print human organs and tissue will advance far faster than general understanding and acceptance of the ramifications of this technology,” said Pete Basiliere, research director at Gartner.

Already in August 2013, the Hangzhou Dianzi University in China announced it had invented the biomaterial 3D printer Regenovo, which printed a small working kidney that lasted four months. Earlier in 2013, a two-year-old child in the US received a windpipe built with her own stem cells.

Consider the Source

 Consider the First Source!

When we align our objectives with the Divine will, when we strive for the attainment of a worthy goal, when we begin our work with a well defined plan, and when we have ability to work together with others effectively, we have already achieved the trajectory for success. For we know that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Learn how to enjoy boundless opportunity and unlimited progress!