Author: Lee Ann Rush

Thought we were finished at eight poisons, did you?  Unfortunately, that was only wishful thinking.  Here’s yet another nauseating example of agribusiness putting its bottom line way ahead of health and common sense:  ractopamine.  The name alone sounds vaguely sinister, as though it could be some sort of monster.  Ractopamine is a drug that was developed by an Eli Lilly subsidiary called Elanco Animal Health.  It’s used as a feed additive for cattle and swine to increase lean meat production, and goes by the brand names Optaflexx for cattle, and Paylean for pigs.  Ractopamine is banned in the European Union, as well as in Taiwan, mainland China, and even in Russia.  Interestingly, Shuanghui International, China’s largest meat company,  recently purchased Smithfield Foods, the biggest pork producer in the United States; more on that later.

Agribusiness views ractopamine along the lines of a wonder drug because it causes livestock to produce more meat containing less fat without an increased amount of feed (they call this greater “feed efficiency”).   Not only that, but the drug has no obvious effect on the appearance, quality, or taste of the meat. Ractopamine is currently used in approximately 45% of pigs raised in the United States, 30% of ration-fed cattle, and an unknown number of turkeys. Frighteningly, as much as 20% of the ractopamine administered to the livestock remains in the meat that’s sold in supermarkets, says Dr. Michael W. Fox, DVM. Consumers can’t see it, taste it, or read about it on a food label, but it’s in there. In animals, ractopamine causes reproductive problems, increased mastitis in dairy stock, and overall increases in death and disability.  It is also known to adversely affect the human cardiovascular system, and has also been linked to hyperactivity, behavioral changes and chromosomal abnormalities in humans. Yet, hard as it may be to believe, the United States does not even test meats sold for human consumption for the presence of ractopamine!

Since 1998, over 1700 people have been poisoned by pork containing ractopamine.  The drug’s use in the U.S. market caused Russia to ban all U.S. meat imports beginning in February, 2013; the ban is slated to last until the United States can certify that its exported meat is free of ractopamine.  The sale of Smithfield Foods to Chinese Shuanghui International in June, 2013 had everything to do with a steep decline in U.S. pork exports following trade disputes centering on our continued use of ractopamine.  Although Smithfield announced in June that 50% of its slaughterhouses now process only ractopamine-free animals, China and Russia are insisting on a complete absence of the drug. According to John Saunders, CEO of Where Food Comes From, a third-party auditor that assists companies in verifying marketing claims, the sale of Smithfield, “is probably a direct result of the ractopamine issue.”

The answer, my friend (short of becoming a vegan) is to limit your meat consumption and look for organically-raised meats when you shop.  Sadly, I’ll have even more foods to avoid next time.

Written by:  Lee Ann Rush

Synthetic growth hormones rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone) and rBST (recombinant bovine somatotropin) were developed by chemical/pharmaceutical corporations Monsanto, American Cyanamid, Upjohn and Eli Lilly to increase the milk yield in lactating cows, thereby increasing milk production on dairy farms and increasing profits (but not necessarily for the dairy farmers).  These hormones are harmful not only to the cows injected with them; they’ve also been shown to cause breast, colon and prostate cancers in humans. Small wonder, then, that rBGH and rBST are banned throughout the European Union, as well as in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.  Not so in the United States, of course, because the FDA is far more concerned with the vitality of large corporations than it is about the health and well-being of the average American citizen.

In fact, rBGH is America’s largest-selling drug for dairy animals.  Recombinant bovine growth hormone is a synthetic form of natural bovine somatotropin (BST), which is produced by the pituitary glands of cows.  Using genetically-engineered E. coli bacteria (yes, that awful stuff that causes frequent outbreaks of food poisoning and waterway contamination), our friends at Monsanto developed rBGH, giving it the brand name Posilac, to increase milk production in dairy herds by approximately 10%.  While doing so, rBGH also makes the cows sick; it has been shown to cause no fewer than 16 adverse bovine health conditions, including lameness, reproductive problems, and soaring rates of bovine mastitis. The antibiotics required to treat the mastitis do much more than that; they also contaminate the milk yield with pus and antibiotic residue.  According to the American Cancer Society, the volume of antibiotics necessary to treat the enormous upsurge in bovine inflammation caused by rBGH injections has resulted in the emergence of new antibiotic-resistant bacteria, although it is still unclear how many of these super-bacteria are being transmitted to the humans who consume the dairy products.  Makes you think twice about telling your kids to drink their milk, doesn’t it?

The facts are indeed frightening.  Yet, even in the face of piles of evidence to the contrary, including the simple fact that the warning labels on Posilac include a laundry list of adverse side effects obviously known to its manufacturers, the FDA still bull-headedly (pun intended) refuses to heed the warnings of groups such as the American Cancer Society and the Cancer Prevention Coalition that rBGH must be banned.   Instead, it recites the tired company line that milk from cows injected with rBGH is no different than milk from untreated cows.  Bulls**t!

The only way to safely avoid rBGH is to buy products labeled either “rBGH free” or “No rBGH.”  Remember this the next time you hear the American Dairy Association’s advertising mantra:  “Milk; it does a body good” -- unless it’s organically-produced milk, they’re lying.

With the amount of sweets that we consume in our regular diet, it’s no wonder that we are concerned with the safety in how the products are made to taste so sweet. Sugar was always naturally driven and the most common way that sweets entered our diets. However recently within the last 20 years or so, another player has come into the sweet world, it’s name is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Being cheaper and easy to manufacture, it’s no wonder how quickly it took over the food industry. The price is half the price of sugar, and takes no importation restrictions. This product has recently gained publicity for being harmful to our health, more so, than sugar. Hidden it also harms our environment in the way it is produced and manufactured.

High fructose corn syrup is made by changing the sugar (glucose) in cornstarch (which is made from corn) to fructose, basically another form of sugar. The product ends in a combination of fructose and glucose. Total combination is 55% fructose and 42% glucose, the remaining 3% larger sugar molecules called higher saccharine. The fructose and glucose in table sugar are chemically bonded together, the body must first digest sugar to break these bonds before the body can absorb them into the blood stream. In HFCS the fructose and glucose are merely blended together, which means it does not need to be digested before it is metabolized and absorbed into the blood stream. Because of this mainly, theories state that HFCS has a greater impact on blood glucose levels than regular table sugar (sucrose).

Almost all of our common sweet products in the grocery store contain high fructose corn syrup, not to mention breads and condiments as well. Sodas, juice, candy, and so on. Medical experts have linked many health issues with HFCS. Obesity is one the main concerns which has a domino effect of diabetes and heart disease. The excess fructose is metabolized to produce fat, while table sugar is largely being processed for energy, or stored as carbohydrate in the liver and muscles. Consumption of HFCS is rapidly impacting the development of the metabolic syndrome. The process of making HFCS is linked to mercury content, which introduces the potential of mercury toxicity. Diabetes and liver disease are at higher risk with the excessive consumption of HFCS also. Parents that have healthy children, need to be aware of the long term risks associated with HFCS. My son has diabetes so being careful with all of his food consumption maintains high priority in our household.

High fructose corn syrup is also not so sweet for the planet, although this product is cheap in the grocery store but it could not be more expensive then it is to the environment. A large vast of corn is grown as monoculture, the land being solely used for corn, not rotated. This increases yield , especially when so much corn is needed to produce HFCS, but this method depletes soil nutrients, requiring more pesiticides and fertilizer, while weakening topsoil. An example of this is the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, and area the size of New Jersey, where almost nothing will live because it has been starved for oxygen by the fertilizer runoff coming down the Mississippi from the Corn Belt. Additionally there is the atrazine in the water in farm country-this is a nasty herbicide, that in concentrations as low as 0.1 part per billion, has been shown to turn male frogs into hermaphrodites. Milling and chemically altering corn to form high fructose corn syrup also is energy intensive. Corn is a useful crop with high yields, although it uses more fertilizers and insecticides thus causes more soil erosion that other crops, it is still relatively cheap and easy to grow.

HFCS is still alive and well. Much noise is made about its health and environmental affects, but the American palate is accustomed to the sweetness it provides and until the repercussions are undeniable, it will continue to be on our grocery store shelves.

Acid rain is simply air pollution. It describes any form of precipitation with high levels of nitric and sulfuric acids. It also shows its presence in the form of snow, fog and tiny bits of dry material that settle to Earth. Natural causes of acid rain consist of rotting vegetation and erupting volcanoes, which can emit chemicals, but the biggest culprit is human activities. The burning of fossil fuels by coal-burning power plants, factories, and automobiles, releases sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere. These chemical gases have a reaction with water, oxygen, and other substances to form mild solutions of sulfuric and nitric acid. Winds disperse these solutions over hundreds of miles across the atmosphere.

The description of acid rain defines the acidity level that the actual rain holds. Acid rain contains weak levels of acid, never enough to burn your skin, but, nonetheless very damaging to almost everything it is exposed to. Some species are able to tolerate acidic waters better than others. Fact remains though, is that we live in an interconnected ecosystem, what impacts some species eventually impacts many more throughout the food chain, including birds which are non-aquatic species.

Acidity is measured using a scale called the PH scale. This scale registers from 0 to 14, with 0 being the most acidic and 14 the most alkaline (opposite of acidic). 7 is considered neutral. The PH level effects everything it comes in contact with. Nature is designed to withstand and be productive to a normal PH level. Rain is always slightly acidic because it mixes with naturally occurring oxides in the air. Unpolluted rain would have a PH value of between 5 and 6. As the air becomes more polluted with nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide the acidity can increase to a PH value of 4. The strongest recorded rain PH value is 2. Keep in mind that even slight changes in PH value can have trickling down effect on the environment.

Acid rain causes acidification of lakes and streams and contributes to the damage of trees at high elevations. Soil is affected dramatically due to the falling of acid rain. Additionally, the falling acid rain accelerates the decay of irreplaceable buildings, statues and sculptures which are a part of our and other nation’s heritage. In the 1970’s acid rain effects were at their worst. This lead to a higher understanding of the harmful results. Aquatic habitats are most vulnerable, not only does the precipitation fall directly on these areas, it runs off the land and into the streams, lakes, and marshes and so on. Animals are a part of a food chain and often if one link is broken or taken away it can have devastating effects.

Trees and soil are the next major issue. Some types of soil, can help neutralize the acid, they have a “buffering capacity,” but most are already slightly acidic so more acid only makes matters worse. Obviously for anything to grow, soil needs to have ideal conditions. Acid rain dissolves and washes away the nutrients and minerals, which are needed for good growing, such as potassium, calcium, and magnesium. Harmful substances are released into the soil and waterways such as aluminum. The waxy protective coating of leaves is worn away, causing damage and preventing them from being able to photosynthesize properly. All of these combinations weaken plant and wildlife.

The best possible way to reduce acid rain is to reduce the amount of emissions passed into the air. Cars are now fitted with catalytic converters which remove three dangerous chemicals from exhaust gases. Researchers are trying to find new ways to burn fossil fuels which don’t produce so much pollution. Sulfur can be “washed” out of smoke by spraying a mixture of water and powdered limestone into the smokestack. Governments need to spend more money on pollution control, it may mean higher electricity prices but investment needs to be made in researching different ways to produce energy. Individuals can put forth efforts at a smaller scale by using less electricity, this decreases the pollution created by power plants. Public transportation, cycling and walking also help reduce air pollution and have a positive effect on our our health. Slowly perhaps we can turn around some of the damage that acid rain has created.