The Enlightenment Of A Englishman In America: Part 1

The Boyfriend is slowly learning about all things United States/American, including learning about the FDA – the Food & Drug Administration of the United States of America (sorry, not all our readers are American). We had conversations with him all day about it. He sat dumbfounded while he read aloud passages from the likes of the Dairy Council of California, Prevent Cancer and Cancer.org websites. He was reading these websites because he wanted to learn more about a bovine hormone that encourages lactation (rBGH/BST) that they inject in some of the cows (1 in 5) in the USA, and therefore is in some of milk in the United States. He was surprised that at least one of these websites provided mostly vague answers to questions that deserved more clarity and others over clarified information that was fairly obvious and easy to understand. Misinformation was the term he used more than once.

*We feigned shock*. What? Misinformation in the United States of America?! Neevvvvvver. *blank stare*

Being we’ve always been of the curious nature, even in childhood, we already knew so much about food in American, so we were not surprised. He read a passage mentioning Monsanto - they are evil and we will stand by that opinion to the day we die…of cancer from eating food genetically modified with things they shouldn’t be (they own almost all the genetic rights to grain seeds in North America and beyond) - how Monsanto has supporters working in the FDA and so things that the rest of the world will not import from the USA because their health organizations deem them unsafe, are readily available to citizens and residents of the United States.

We digress; we’re getting all hot under the collar over here by the subject of milk, grain and food....

Clearly food security and safety, nutrition, government regulation etc. is a subject I desire to cover with much more depth than we can tonight (for something I wrote about a year and a half ago read: ‘Fundamentally Unsafe: High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)’ http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2010/05/fundamentally-unsafe-high-fructose-corn.html)

Long story short is that our day was fairly interesting with unpacking and conversations with The Boyfriend (who is British, or rather an Englishman, for those who have not read more about him here in the blog) about the FDA, and food in general in the United States…he was appalled to learn about how we, the USA, raise our beef and other animals for human consumption. Don’t know what we are talking about? Read ‘Fast Food Nation’…but don’t watch the movie, it is rubbish in comparison to the book. Watch ‘Food, Inc’…and several other documentaries that take you inside the more recent industrial revolution of food production in America…it’s no wonder we’re a nation of physically ill people.

Judging from his first few days here (ever), and his general observations of society, he is seeing the United States with open eyes, wide.open.eyes (we hear a lot of "Wow"'s...).

It’s interesting to be part of someone else’s enlightenment…not that he, like so many, had far to go; and as far as I am concerned enlightenment is ever-evolving and is not a stagnant state.

~Frank

----- Links to offsite locations to things we mentioned, and points of interest ----

"If you eat a typical amount of beef per year, […] which in the United States is about 67 pounds, switching to grass-fed beef will save you 16,642 calories a year."
Source: CNN Health ‘The grass-fed vs. grain-fed beef debate’ March 29, 2011 http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/03/29/grass.grain.beef.cookinglight/index.html

http://www.pbs.org/pov/foodinc/ (Trailer and synopsis for ‘Food, Inc’)

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Fast-Food-Nation-Eric-Schlosser/?isbn=9780060838584 (description of Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser from Harper Collins)

Generally related link of interest, an article by American Free Press Kerry Sheridan, regarding the recent deadly cantaloupes and the many potential reasons they became contaminated with listeria, all things that could have been prevented had there been more regulation in place, more monitoring, more people who cared about product over profit, likely… http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5joe6nr9CMM1XtBMIt3a27V3dfJLg?docId=CNG.339e36e1d75721f93c1ca8cb6b037173.1b1“