by John Melendez

Created on: July 23, 2009

Do You Eat Food?

Are you an organic grower? Like to eat organic food? Well, maybe not for much longer.

According to recent proposed legislation, a "food grower" essentially is a farmer - no matter big or small - and this also means you or your neighbor.

If you grow a few radishes in your yard every year, then you are a food grower. If you grow a few radishes without using man-made pesticides and fertilizers, then you are an organic farmer. Whether you are an organic farmer or not, given that this legislation will pass, you could be fined and prosecuted under federal law for illegally growing a handful of radishes.

How ridiculous is that?

How They Softened Us Up

Years ago big business sold the farmers and us on the idea that using fertilizer to augment the growth of our food was somehow good for us. By now we all know how bad those fertilizers are for our bodies. But we still use them, and that seems to be a battle that fell to the wayside.

And then they got us to accept the fact that would be feeding our children with food laced with pesticides...

It seems we now look upon these yesteryear skirmishes as lost causes of little to no significance in our lives now.

But get ready...

Evil Has a Pleasant New Face

As if all this brainwashing hasn't been enough, something new and more overtly dangerous has recently appeared on the horizon:

US House Resolution 875, the so-called "Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009".

This proposed legislation sounds like it only wants to protect you. Read here:

"To establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illness, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes."

HR 875 sounds friendly, right?

If you read between the lines of this seemingly innocuous liturgy, you will find that the closing words "for other purposes" leave a lot of room for a lot of undefined interpretation.

Absolute Power

This proposed legislation would seek (among many other things) to: Establish a new "Food Safety Administration" (FSA) under an already bloated and knowingly ineffectual Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Establish the FSA as the definitive author and enforcer of food safety laws - a power that up until now would have rested with the individual states. Institute the FSA as the absolute agency for food law enforcement.

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