Listen to this fantastic interview on 1290 AM CJBK, London, Ontario about healing digestion and chronic pain and building optimal health with nutrient-dense foods.
http://pamkilleen.com/app/download/5791226104/Andy+Oudman+Pam+Killeen+Kathryne+Pirtle.mp3
For more information on healing and building health with nutrient-dense foods and seminars on this subject, see www.performancewithoutpain.com
Best in Health,
Kathryne Pirtle
The Canary Party is a grassroots initiative aimed at reforming medical, industrial food and environmental corruption and the obstruction of human rights with regard to these issues. Harry Truman’s statement, “A nation is only as healthy as its children,” is a chilling prediction. We as a nation must heed this wisdom and prepare to make changes in our perception of what truly will build our prosperity. Our children are our legacy. We must change course.
Please read more about the new political party being formed to advance health and food freedom.
A Grass Roots Initiative for Health Freedom
Kathryne Pirtle
Edited by Louise Kuo Habakus, M.A. (Director, Center for Personal Rights) and
Mary Holland, J.D. (Research Scholar, NYU School of Law)
Skyhorse Publishing, 2011
As it is with most things—more is not always better. It has taken over 15 years of independent world-wide research by extremely concerned parents, doctors, scientists and lawyers to build an undeniable momentum commanding that the protective rubber stamp of approval on vaccine development, safety, mandates and policies be addressed. A book of acute gravity, Vaccine Epidemic, presents an urgent dialogue about the vaccine controversy. The opening dedication—To all who are asking the questions and all who are demanding the answers—summarizes widening public consciousness and mainstream concern regarding vaccine safety.
Through the voices of experts in ethics, law, science, medicine, business, and history, the book requires thoughtful attention and action. An exponential rise in children who are suffering serious vaccine damage will not be ignored, nor will the lack of appropriate medical and governmental action to thwart this trend. Vaccine Epidemic advocates an honest and thorough assessment of vaccination policy and vaccine safety.
Habakus and Holland examine these issues:
The Case for Vaccination Choice
The recognition of intrinsic human rights has been a hallmark of democratic societies. Vaccine Epidemic eloquently clarifies vaccination choice as a fundamental human right. It reveals this in relationship to a wealth of international and national standards such as the Nuremberg Code, free and informed consent, medical autonomy, due process, the human rights revolution, and public health revolutions in sanitation, hygiene and antibiotics. It scrutinizes the far-reaching, inappropriate governmental vaccination policies whereby a child’s right to a free education is at risk as a consequence of partial or full non-compliance.
Herd immunity is at the root of vaccination mandates. However, the book exposes the many flaws in this unproven theory. Habakus states, “What is most troubling about the theory of herd immunity is that the original basis for its validity has nothing to do with vaccines. People observed a protective effect in the community when a sufficiently high number of individuals contracted the wild form of a disease and secured lifelong immunity…In the 1930s and 1940s, health officials began using ‘techniques of mass persuasion’ and ‘aggressive salesmanship’ to increase the public’s compliance in receiving vaccinations.” For herd immunity to dictate vaccination policy, the government must prove that unvaccinated individuals will harm those that are vaccinated. This has never been demonstrated. Interestingly, the book brings to light the fact that a large portion of children who suffer from many childhood diseases were previously vaccinated against them!
Additionally, since the increase in the vaccination schedule and its corresponding rapid rise in children suffering vaccine damage, there has been a lack of justice, including an absence of due process and appropriate compensation for victims. A moral society would not allow a dubious public policy based on the flawed principle of “the greater good” to continue. Parents have the ultimate authority over their children’s medical interventions. Vaccination choice must prevail.
Narratives
The tragedies described in this book represent the wide-ranging effect of careless vaccine development and mandates. I attended the American Rally for Personal Rights at Grant Park in downtown Chicago in the spring of 2010, during the week of the Autism One conference. I was awestruck and absolutely grief-stricken by the many stories of vaccination damage I heard. Vaccine Epidemic is the outgrowth of that powerful rally. I knew that each incomprehensible story represented hundreds of thousands of children and thousands more yet to be harmed.
Contributing author Michael Belkin, a leading investment strategist and former director of the Hepatitis B Vaccine Project of the National Vaccine Information Center explains, “If you doubt the existence of adverse reactions to vaccines, you must first examine with your own eyes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), which is available and searchable online at www.medalerts.org As of November 17, 2010, VAERS listed 352,650 reports of vaccine adverse events. Former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner David Kessler wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association, that ‘only 1% of serious adverse events are reported to the FDA.’ ” Belkin’s daughter died at five weeks of age after hepatitis B vaccination. As of March 11, 2011, the tally has risen to 361,519, acknowledged to represent only 1 to 10% of actual adverse events associated with vaccination.
The story is repeated over and over—a healthy child is born, and after receiving recommended vaccinations which start on the day of birth, that child is never the same—is stricken with autism—or maybe dead. Those who recover are very fortunate, as many cannot overcome the effects of vaccine-induced encephalitis—brain inflammation—despite a comprehensive array of holistic therapies. Most terrifying are the stories of hopeless parents who take their child’s life along with their own—those who can no longer carry the overwhelming and isolating burden of the care of their beloved.
Contributing author Amy Pingel’s haunting chronicle of her teenage daughter’s descent from perfect health to breathing through a trach and eating from a tube is a result of a severe reaction to the “Gardasil” vaccine. Her saga represents the pervasive acceleration to develop more vaccines for older children and adults—vaccines that are pressured and innocently advertised through medical practitioners and the media as a “must have.” Yet—there is little disclosure of the true risks.
Contributing author Air Force captain Richard Rovet, RN (USAF ret) implores that the enormous risks our servicemen take to defend our country should not include being used as guinea pigs for vaccine experimentation. Yet, this is what is happening to our military personnel. In the Gulf War, more servicemen and service woman were damaged from the experimental vaccines than from the war itself. Why was this allowed? This needs to be brought out to the public.
The truth about vaccines must be widely understood.
The Topics in Debate
Vaccine Epidemic exposes problematic issues about vaccine policy. A rigorous public challenge of these troubling practices must continue.
Finally, the book moves us to action as vaccination choice is at risk in our country. “The American Academy of Pediatrics and its spokespeople are suggesting the abolition of philosophical and religious exemption rights. They have a lot of influential support behind them—the pharmaceutical industry, public health, government and media. We are in crisis. You can expect more federally recommended vaccines to be added to the schedule…more vaccines of unproven safety to reach the market…more efforts to dismiss vaccine injury…Unless we change course, these projections will likely become reality.”
Things you can do now:
Health freedom is an inalienable right. Whether it is food freedom or vaccination choice—it is one and the same issue. Just as we seek higher quality in our food choices, we are demanding honesty and choice in all public policies that can affect our health. We must stand together and demand what is ours already—nothing less will do, for ourselves and our children.
Review by Kathryne Pirtle
This article will be published in the July, 2011 edition of the Wise Traditions Journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation. To receive the journal, go to www.westonaprice.org
I have been inspired listening to the CD of Pete Seeger’s songs done with Paul Winter and Earth Music Productions (!996). Of all the people that light up this planet, Pete Seeger did an amazing job. On the front of his banjo are printed the words, “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.” As we change the imbalances of this planet, I see a thread of the abuse of power. Pete writes, “The human race is in need of organizers who are not power hungry. Power is the worst drug in the world.”
Wisdom is timeless–music is timeless. We pass away, but the music and words live on. Taking the melody of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Pete writes:
Build the road of peace before us
Build it wide and deep and long
Speed the slow, remind the eager
HELP THE WEAK AND GUIDE THE STRONG
NONE SHALL PUSH ASIDE ANOTHER
NONE SHALL LET ANOTHER FALL
Work beside me sisters and brothers
ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL.
I see many on the road who are working to heal this planet. We are changing from the inside out. Every person’s efforts to help are important–no act is too small. All for one and one for all.
May the light continue to fill your heart and work to inspire you.
Many blessings,
Kathryne Pirtle
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
– attributed to Edmund Burke
From Eknath Easwaran’s, Thought for the Day
Some of our most trying difficulties are caused by plain old inertia. Inertia shows itself in not wanting to move, not wanting to act – in other words, in wanting to be a stone just lying on the road. It is all right for a stone to be inert; that is its role in life. But it is not all right for you and me to just lie down and try to avoid problems, saying, “What does it matter?”
When I hear the phrase “well adjusted,” I do not always take it as a favorable comment. Mahatma Gandhi has said that to be well adjusted in a wrong situation is very bad; in a wrong situation we should keep on acting to set it right. When Gandhi, at the peak of his political activity, was asked in a British court what his profession was, he said, “Resister.” If he was put in a wrong situation, he just could not keep quiet; he had to resist, nonviolently but very effectively, until the situation was set right.
I am often deeply moved by the daily messages from Eknath Eawaren’s, Thought for the Day. What can you do today to make a difference? Every effort to help change our food supply and heal our people so that the generations to come will have something better is important. Every act that brings light to our mother earth is essential.
Many Blessings,
Kathryne Pirtle
For more information on healing and building health with nutrient-dense foods and seminars on this subject, see www.performancewithoutpain.com
Book by Evan D.G. Fraser and Andrew Rimas (Pub. by Free Press, 2010)
Empires of Food is a fascinating book that certainly reveals the old adage that “history repeats itself.” As we moved away from the hunter-gatherer paradigm to that of civilization, man has often been deceived by the pursuit of progress. From the Mayan, Greek and Roman empires to our present day society, many urban societies have mistakenly sought development through monoculture–an agricultural system that depends on limited crops like wheat, corn and soybeans.
However, these agricultural systems have always suffered grave consequences:
“These societies, these food empires, can only exist if three things happen: Farmers need to grow more food than they eat; they need a means of trading it to willing buyers; they need a way to store it so it doesn’t turn to sludge before reaching its economic apotheosis. When these three premises are met, urban life flourishes. Which is, in itself, the seed of the problem…When a food empire fails, mobs tear apart the marketplace, angry over the cost of bread. Governments raise armies to conquer greener, more fertile valleys. People uproot. Forest creeps back over old fences. Arable land falls into disuse, and society contracts. It happens again and again. And it’s happening now…..”
Reading this summation of agricultural history now as we face alarming governmental interference to thwart the emergence of a truly sustainable system struck me to the core. Inherent problems to all monocultures are the clearing of massive amounts of land ultimately ending in the total destruction of its fertility, disease to crops and climate change, most often in the form of warming and drought. Also common is the inevitable abuse of governmental power as whoever controls the food, controls the people. Inevitably, urban society cannot ceaselessly survive in this unsustainable structure.
However, the wisdom of our current biodynamic, pasture farming movement is the answer to correcting the serious problems of our depleted food supply. Protecting biodiversity and our precious resources are essential elements of our survival. Furthermore, Fraser and Rimas discuss the importance of saving food surpluses and supporting a global sustainable farming network as insurance for times of shortage.
This book provides an enlightening historical journey through the problematic agricultural practices that led to the destruction of great societies that briefly flourished. Although today we have stores full of varieties of cheap food never before offered—food that will only grow with fertilizers and insecticides made from petrochemicals—there will be an end to this system. Cheap food is not cheap.
The types of changes we have made with regard to our food choices, sources and our health in relation to the work of Weston A. Price we must also foster in relation to our entire global food system. Can we raise enough awareness and learn from history before it is too late? Can we become a society that chooses according to how our decisions will affect people for the next seven generations? I say we must.
Kathryne Pirtle
~~~
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Dear Friends,
I have been talking to Francis Thicke, a sustainable farmer in Iowa who is running for Secretary of Agriculture in Iowa. With Monsanto and big agribusiness pouring piles of money to plant candidates in key positions across our country–we need your help.
Francis has been endorsed by both Michael Pollen and the producer of Food Inc.
http://www.thickeforagriculture.com/
See this amazing video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY29b4o1mJQ&feature=player_embedded#!
Here is a letter to me from Francis:
We have some very good news from our campaign for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture that I want to share with you. We have just completed a scientific poll of Iowa voters to find out what my chances are of getting elected. In the poll results I am trailing the incumbent narrowly (within the margin of statistical error). The very good news is that when respondents were given basic facts about the incumbent’s and my positions on issues, I passed him by a large margin.
These results are very encouraging because they indicate to us that voters are very favorable to the issues I have been raising, and that if we are able to mount a TV and radio advertising campaign in the final weeks before the election, we have a very good chance of winning.
The bottom line is that we need to raise $200,000 to 300,000 in order to get our message out on the airwaves.
Obviously, large donors would be very helpful, but we are also working hard to get many small and medium-sized contributions. Thus far, our support has been from many smaller, grassroots contributors. My opponent is getting large PAC checks from Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, and many other agribusiness interests.
Remember the Who’s from Whoville from Dr. Suess’s Horton Hears a Who? We need all of you Who’s out there to shout loud and clear–every one of you!! Nothing you do is too small–it’s the numbers that matter.
Please pass this message on. To donate, please go to http://www.thickeforagriculture.com/
Best in Health,
Kathryne Pirtle
On Tuesday, August 24th I attended a key Constitutional Rights rally for raw milk on the capitol steps of Madison, Wisconsin led by Sheriff Richard Mack . Mack is a retired sheriff from Graham County, Arizona and ardent champion of the U.S. Constitution and of states and individual rights. In the mid-90′s, Mack successfully challenged the Brady bill, obtaining a United States Supreme Court ruling that prevented the federal government from imposing an unfunded mandate on the States. Today, Sheriff Mack travels the country lecturing on the importance of constitutional vigilance. He educates sheriffs about their ultimate authority in their counties–that their oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution forbids them from carrying out unconstitutional orders from federal and state agencies such as DATCP in Wisconsin (Dept. of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.)
Sheriff Mack described eloquently the warnings of our founding fathers who fought and died for our freedom. They knew that the correct role of government should be to protect the basic freedoms of its people and not interfere in their private lives, and that when government gets too big, this basic role could be threatened. He said that Lady Liberty is ailing and that people today cannot be complacent and uninvolved – that this will be a grave error for our people. Many great nations have fallen by this sword.
Now just as a reminder of why our forefathers had the wisdom to write a constitution that upholds the right of every citizen to bear arms, and why Sheriff Mack worked so hard to challenge the Brady bill, I have a little gun history that may interest you.
You get the idea. Every constitutional right you have is there for a reason. Without these rights, the United States of America would not stand for freedom today. Yet, right now we are facing many challenges to these freedoms that cannot be ignored.
Our country is rooted in a rich agricultural heritage. Small family farms graced our land for hundreds of years. In the last two years, all over our nation, we have witnessed unprecedented, unethical governmental farm raids aimed at jeopardizing these small farms. Wisconsin farmer, Vernon Hershberger and his family were present at the rally and had been recent victims of these tactics that make criminals out of innocent, law abiding people.
Mack called on sheriffs and police officers who have sworn by sacred oath, to abide by the constitution–that it is their absolute duty to protect citizens from unlawful harassment. He asked–”How different would the Rosa Parks case have been if police officers had protected her personal rights, which was their constitutional responsibility?”
As our people have suffered from the far-reaching health consequences of a sixty-year experiment with industrial foods, the demand for nutrient-rich foods that heal and support health from sustainable farms is dramatically increasing. However, even as food safety and quality issues regarding mass-produced food are ever more prevalent, the industrial food system and pharmaceutical giants are trying to deal their power card. Fortunately, people are waking up and the word is getting out. The government has no business in our kitchens or dictating to our small farms–these are private affairs.
Americans intuitively understand our claim to clean water and air, and to sustainable food grown with integrity. We know that we have inalienable rights to life, liberty and security of our person. Another example of overreaching government intrusion is seen with proliferating vaccination mandates. In all states, healthy children are required to receive an unprecedented number of vaccines – 70 doses of 16 vaccines, as a requirement for daycare and school admission. This occurs in the complete absence of any public health emergency, where government has not demanded the scientific research to prove their assertions of herd immunity and the “greater good.” Yet the government is violating our rights, as Americans and human beings, by withholding important privileges, making the choice to vaccinate no real choice at all. Parents have always possessed the right, supported by the Constitution, to determine what is best for their own children. Will we protect these rights?
Vaccination choice and food freedom share the common foundational touchstones of health, human rights, and bodily integrity. Our communities are bringing networks and resources together to educate supporters on how our work is part and parcel of the same cause. If we remain segregated and separate, we will be divided and picked off. The inspiration for solutions will come from integration across our groups, in the creation of a broader movement.
Have we forgotten that our country was founded on the rights of private citizens? Have you read our Constitution recently? In June, I traveled to Washington DC to testify against the “new” USDA Dietary Guidelines. During this trip, I visited the Holocaust Museum. Nazi Germany followed on the heels of a cultured, civilized and sophisticated Weimar Republic. The process unfolded slowly, almost imperceptibly. German citizens were decent, hardworking people, struggling to provide for their families, trusting their government to make the right choices for its people. As the words “Never again” ring in our ears, today we ask how it could have happened. What happens when we abandon vigilance, seek greater protections and safety in exchange for our freedom, and trust government to do the right thing?
We cannot afford complacency. The signs are all there. Be actively involved in the protection of our personal and Constitutional rights. Go to a rally, organize a rally, write letters, contact and meet with your governmental representatives–get involved. Do something. But–you have no time–right? What is the consequence of this attitude. Who will do it then?
Kathryne Pirtle
with
Louise Habakus
Life Health Choices
Center for Personal Rights and
PetitionCoalition for Vaccine Safety
We cannot assume that someone else will protect our rights. Each person needs to write a letter. SB S510 is perhaps one of the most scandalous bills to ever have been written that could jeopardize your right to choose the foods you want to eat.
Please send the following senators listed below a sample letter below, or write one and send yours.
Kathryne Pirtle
Dear Congress(wo)man,
I am deeply concerned with your sponsorship of Senate Bill 510. That bill represents another hideous attempt to place more power into the hands of centralized government and robs individual citizens and states. The greatest danger to mankind is that this bill allows complete manipulation of America ‘s food supply and threatens to strip us of our freedoms to grow, sell, and buy food and make doing any of those natural things crimes punishable by imprisonment. It would be a crime to grow food and share it with my friends and neighbors. The act of generating and supporting this bill is in itself criminal to our Constitution to which you are not immune. Not only remove your sponsorship from Bill S510 but defeat it. Thank you.
Sincerely,
(your name)
Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) is the sponsor of this bill.
Co-sponsors are:
Lamar Alexander [R-TN]
Jeff Bingaman [D-NM]
Richard Burr [R-NC]
Roland Burris [D-IL]
Saxby Chambliss [R-GA]
Christopher Dodd [D-CT]
Michael Enzi [R-WY]
Kirsten Gillibrand [D-NY]
Judd Gregg [R-NH]
Thomas Harkin [D-IA]
Orrin Hatch [R-UT]
John Isakson [R-GA]
Edward Kennedy [D-MA]
Amy Klobuchar [D-MN]
Ben Nelson [D-NE]
Tom Udall [D-NM]
David Vitter [R-LA]
S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010, may be the most dangerous bill in the history of the US.
“If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes. It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God.” It is similar to what India faced with imposition of the salt tax during British rule, only S 510 extends control over all food in the US, violating the fundamental human right to food.” ~ Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower.
Monsanto says it has no interest in the bill and would not benefit from it, but Monsanto’s Michael Taylor who gave us rBGH and unregulated genetically modified (GM) organisms, appears to have designed it and is waiting as an appointed Food Czar to the FDA (a position unapproved by Congress) to administer the agency it would create — without judicial review — if it passes.
History
In the 1990s, Bill Clinton introduced HACCP (Hazardous Analysis Critical Control Points) purportedly to deal with contamination in the meat industry. Clinton’s HACCP delighted the offending corporate (World Trade Organization “WTO”) meat packers since it allowed them to inspect themselves, eliminated thousands of local food processors (with no history of contamination), and centralized meat into their control. Monsanto promoted HACCP.
In 2008, Hillary Clinton, urged a powerful centralized food safety agency as part of her campaign for president. Her advisor was Mark Penn, CEO of Burson Marsteller*, a giant PR firm representing Monsanto. Clinton lost, but Clinton friends such as Rosa DeLauro, whose husband’s firm lists Monsanto as a progressive client and globalization as an area of expertise, introduced early versions of S 510.
S 510 fails on moral, social, economic, political, constitutional, and human survival grounds.
1. It puts all US food and all US farms under Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, in the event of contamination or an ill-defined emergency. It resembles the Kissinger Plan.
2. It would end US sovereignty over its own food supply by insisting on compliance with the WTO, thus threatening national security. It would end the Uruguay Round Agreement Act of 1994, which put US sovereignty and US law under perfect protection. Instead, S 510 says:
Nothing in this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) shall be construed in a manner inconsistent with the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization or any other treaty or international agreement to which the United States is a party.
3. It would allow the government, under Maritime Law, to define the introduction of any food into commerce (even direct sales between individuals) as smuggling into “the United States.” Since under that law, the US is a corporate entity and not a location, “entry of food into the US” covers food produced anywhere within the land mass of this country and “entering into” it by virtue of being produced.
4. It imposes Codex Alimentarius on the US, a global system of control over food. It allows the United Nations (UN), World Health Organization (WHO), UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the WTO to take control of every food on earth and remove access to natural food supplements. Its bizarre history and its expected impact in limiting access to adequate nutrition (while mandating GM food, GM animals, pesticides, hormones, irradiation of food, etc.) threatens all safe and organic food and health itself, since the world knows now it needs vitamins to survive, not just to treat illnesses.
5. It would remove the right to clean, store and thus own seed in the US, putting control of seeds in the hands of Monsanto and other multinationals, threatening US security. See Seeds – How to criminalize them, for more details.
6. It includes NAIS, an animal traceability program that threatens all small farmers and ranchers raising animals. The UN is participating through the WHO, FAO, WTO, and World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) in allowing mass slaughter of even heritage breeds of animals and without proof of disease. Biodiversity in farm animals is being wiped out to substitute genetically engineered animals on which corporations hold patents. Animal diseases can be falsely declared. S 510 includes the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), despite its corrupt involvement in the H1N1 scandal, which is now said to have been concocted by the corporations.
7. It extends a failed and destructive HACCP to all food, thus threatening to do to all local food production and farming what HACCP did to meat production – put it in corporate hands and worsen food safety.
8. It deconstructs what is left of the American economy. It takes agriculture and food, which are the cornerstone of all economies, out of the hands of the citizenry, and puts them under the total control of multinational corporations influencing the UN, WHO, FAO and WTO, with HHS, and CDC, acting as agents, with Homeland Security as the enforcer. The chance to rebuild the economy based on farming, ranching, gardens, food production, natural health, and all the jobs, tools and connected occupations would be eliminated.
9. It would allow the government to mandate antibiotics, hormones, slaughterhouse waste, pesticides and GMOs. This would industrialize every farm in the US, eliminate local organic farming, greatly increase global warming from increased use of oil-based products and long-distance delivery of foods, and make food even more unsafe. The five items listed — the Five Pillars of Food Safety — are precisely the items in the food supply which are the primary source of its danger.
10. It uses food crimes as the entry into police state power and control. The bill postpones defining all the regulations to be imposed; postpones defining crimes to be punished, postpones defining penalties to be applied. It removes fundamental constitutional protections from all citizens in the country, making them subject to a corporate tribunal with unlimited power and penalties, and without judicial review.
For further information, watch these videos:
Food Laws – Forcing people to globalize?
Corporate Rule?
Reclaiming Economies?
Wise words from Gandhi teach us that the best use of our anger towards the injustices we see or experience is to be actively involved in creating solutions to the problem and practice non-violent resistance. This principle can be applied to anything in our lives. It takes great insight and self-control to use our energy in this way.
I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power that can move the world.
– Mahatma Gandhi
From Eknath Easwaran’s Thought for the Day
Mahatma Gandhi provides a perfect example of how anger can be harnessed. As a young, unknown, brown-skinned lawyer traveling in South Africa on business, he was roughly thrown from the train because he refused to surrender his first-class ticket and move to the third-class compartment. He spent a cold, sleepless night on the railway platform.
Later, he said this was the turning point of his life: for on that night, full of anger because of this personal injustice, as well as the countless injustices suffered by so many others every day in South Africa, he resolved not to rest until he had set those injustices right. On that night he conquered his anger and vowed to resist injustice, not by violence or retaliation, but through the loving power of nonviolent resistance, which elevates the consciousness of both oppressed and oppressor.
We may never be called on to liberate a people or lead a vast nation, but Gandhi’s example can apply in a small way in our own lives, when we decide to return good will for ill will, love for hatred, in the innumerable little acts of daily life.
In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the King’s’ wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the King for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way. Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the King indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many of us never understand! Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.
Today, what can you do to help make positive change happen? We need every person. We can change our food supply, our environment, our government…anything we can see clearly we can change. What can you do today?
Best in health,
Kathryne Pirtle
For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.
The raids on small family farms, like the Hershbergers–in the name of inspections for food safety and the like –are totally ludicrous as we all know. They are big agri- business’ and government’s desire to control the food supply in support of our arcane industrial farming industry–where farmers can’t make a decent living except through joining the ranks of super sized, subsidized farms for our fast food nation.
Below is a poignant letter I received talking about just how ridiculous regulating small farms in the name of protecting people from “bacteria” really is–as if monitoring small farms for bacteria count in their milk is really a big problem….In our germaphobic and immunity compromised population, real food from small family farms is our only hope for building people’s health and repairing our destroyed food supply.
I’d like to see the corresponding numbers as to the food that is ‘monitored’. We seem to have no rules of hygiene for the many foreigners and folks who decide to sell their own food in PUBLIC restaurants. The people who check these things out should have a sincere learning of bacteria and foods, with server’s finger nails, jewelry and facial hair. It’s disgusting. I would prefer buying milk or food from someone I know, someone who is not bamboozled by big corporations.
I have seen fast food restaurants where servers lean over the food and their dirty apron touches it; drinks and ice cream handed to you with hands that have dirt under the nails.
I was in a meat market where food dropped on the floor was picked up and packaged…by the manager!. the workers and delivery people come in and walk all round the meat handlers…. their shoes have stood next to toilets, walked on the sidewalks and streets where people spit, and sometimes blow their nose, and where dogs pee. Those same shoes walk around the fresh meat tables, and the meat that has fallen to the floor gets every chance of being contaminated.. yet is put back with the rest of the meats.
Hand gels do not disinfect. Only hot water and soap can get near disinfecting. In Chicago, I saw water dripping through the ceiling tile onto the counter. and it was ignored!! The clerk walked around the drip to hand me a sandwich… which I then refused. I was almost served by a man who decided to scratch himself beneath his belt and continue to handle fried chicken…right in Northbrook Il.!!
Doesn’t ANYone take general science anymore?
I recently wrote an article about how Doctors and Nurses have long hair that constantly needs to be stroked back over the ears to keep it out of the eyes…….and then handle a suture; a fresh cut. I abhor mustaches and beards around food or on Doctors. The hair is a magnet for the dangerous bacteria that drops out of a nose, or the saliva that lands on the beard. One nurse who chatted with me before a procedure was holding the needles, and tapping at the open cold-sore that was on her nostril. I actually watched the blood pressure on my monitor go up!
When I see a chef or cook wear rings and bracelets while they are sticking their hands in meats or salads, or stroking a smooth steak or raw salmon, I cringe. Where is the governing of our health here? On the other hand, you guys raid a small farm business for selling raw milk, robbing us of our choice of wholesome milk or shelved, stored contaminated milks and cheeses. Spend our tax money on things that really count!! Let the small farms produce things that we can choose to use or not use. Stop forcing the consumer to buy things we know are unhealthy!
Judi Klinsky
For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.
Best in health,
Kathryne Pirtle
The raid on Vernon Hershberger’s farm in Sauk County, Wisonsin is yet another demonstration of unconstitutional governmental interference in the private rights of law abiding citizens. When you listen carefully to the video link below, you will hear that the State Ag department admits it has no jurisdiction.
http://www.channel3000.com/localvideo/index.html?v=29206
Patricia Barrett, Esq.
Sauk County District Attorney
Sauk County Court House
515 Oak Street
Baraboo, WI 53913
Phone (608) 355-3207
Fax (608)355-3282
patricia.barrett@da.wi.gov
2. Contact the Sauk County Sheriff’s office and urge them not to participate in any investigation of the Hershbergers. Here is the contact information:
Randy Stammen, Sheriff
Sauk County Sheriff
Law Enforcement Center
1300 Lange Court
Baraboo, WI 53913
Admin Phone (608) 355-3207
Fax (608) 355-3598
rstammen@co.sauk.wi.us
3. Use the talking points at the end of this alert to persuade the County DA and the Sheriff not to pursue the Hershberger case.
4. Enlist others to join in this campaign to help the Hershbergers and farms like Grazin’ Acres.
BACKGROUND
On June 2, DATCP officials, Jacqueline Owens and Cathleen Anderson along with Sauk County Health Department officials and deputies of the County Sheriff descended upon Vernon and Erma Hershberger’s dairy farm, Grazin’ Acres in Loganville, to execute a “special inspection” warrant. DATCP inspectors taped freezers in the Hershbergers’ farm store and placed a hold order on thousands of dollars of food in the store, mostly raw milk and raw milk products. Under the hold order, the Hershbergers were prohibited from selling or even moving any of the food in the taped freezers. DATCP sent inspectors out to the farm because the Hershbergers had refused to comply with an intrusive request by the agency for documents and information going back over seven years.
The Hershbergers’ on-farm store sold products only to members of the private buying club. Vernon told reporters that under the Constitution, he was allowed to enter into private contracts and that DATCP had no jurisdiction over his operation. DATCP has referred the matter to the Sauk County District Attorney.
On June 8, Owens and Anderson returned to the farm without a warrant, attempting to conduct another inspection of the farm store. Vernon refused the request for an inspection and the officials left his premises. Before leaving, they served Vernon a ‘Special Order’ which could subject him to fines of up to $5,000 per violation if he is not in compliance with Wisconsin food and dairy laws.
On June 10, Owens and Anderson again returned to the farm, this time with a warrant but the store doors were locked; so, again they left without searching the store.
POINTS TO MAKE
1. The County DA and Sheriff should not be spending taxpayer money, pursuing cases like this in which there is no victim or injury. There has been no complaint filed by anyone against the Hershbergers.
2. The only injury in a case like this occurs when the farmer or food distributor is prosecuted and consumers who were obtaining foods they deem best for their health and the health of their families have now lost their source of those foods.
3. The right of consumers to obtain the foods of their choice from the source of their choice is a political issue; cases like this in which there has been no injury do not belong in the courts nor should the Sheriff be participating in any investigation of them. The County DA and Sheriff should exercise their discretion not to get involved in these cases.
4. With the tough economic times and all the cutbacks in government spending, the County DA and Sheriff should not be using their remaining enforcement dollars pursuing victimless crimes.
5. Let the County DA and Sheriff know how food direct from farms has benefitted your health and the health of your family.
The Hershberger farm has been providing high quality pastured foods and raw milk to a members-only buying club. These private lease buying clubs and Herd lease/cow-share programs will save the small family farm from bankruptcy across our nation, take back our constitutional rights and transform our damaged food supply.
Who’s your farmer?………….
To locate a cow-share/ private buying club in your area, see www.realmilk.com
Thanks for your help in saving this small family farm!
Kathy
Chicago was the central think tank and activism center of the world for autism and vaccination choice last week during the Autism One Conference and the American Rally for Personal Rights. The Autism One conference and the American Rally for Personal Rights were strategically connected into one week as they partnered to create a massive exchange of solutions to our most serious health issues—damage to the human body through toxic overload. Continue the article at: http://hartkeisonline.com/2010/06/02/autism-one-conference-and-the-american-rally-for-personal-rights/#more-6548
Best in Health,
Kathryne Pirtle
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Do you think this kind of country would be facing a financial and health disaster?
Do you think this kind of country would be protected from a financial and health disaster?
Visualize the country you would like to have. Vote with your pocketbook. Support real food.
For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.
Best in health,
Kathryne Pirtle
Do you value the freedom to choose what you would like to eat. Do you value the freedom to choose the foods you want to your family to eat? Max Kane may be going to jail for helping people to obtain a healthy source of food. See this link to an important website and video. rawmilkparty.com
Please send this on to others.
Best in Health,
Kathryne Pirtle
The right of both consumers to quality foods and small family farmers to produce these foods is a primary issue today. Industrial farming and pharmaceutical giants with deep pockets to maintain power are behind the legislation that is aimed and literally criminalizing our rights to this basic freedom. Mahatma Gandhi said: Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. This video represents the work we have ahead of us: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLJ_ThE02Hg
Best in Health,
Kathryne Pirtle
WHOLE FOODS PULLS RAW MILK FROM SHELVES
Whole Foods has announced that they will be removing all raw milk from their shelves in California, Washington, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. The reason given is that Whole Foods’ insurance company has decided it will not cover liability for perceived health issues with raw milk until a satisfactory nationwide safety policy for raw milk has been demonstrated. It is important to stress the fact that this action is not a reaction to any safety problem caused by raw milk.
It is EXTREMELY important to let Whole Foods know how you feel about this decision by emailing them at http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/company/contact_submit.php. Then patronize smaller health foods stores and markets that still carry raw milk. Not only has Whole Foods stopped providing Nature’s perfect food, they have created a severe financial hardship for the farmers who in good faith have invested in raw milk production for Whole Foods markets. If you phone the dairy that has provided raw milk to Whole Foods, they will be able to provide you with the names of stores that still carry it.
Below is my testimony from the hearing for the bill to legalize raw milk in Wisconsin. It was an exciting day for raw milk. Over 700 people gathered to show their support of this bill. People traveled from as far as France to testify! The testimonies went for over 10 hours. THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN–LEGALIZE RAW MILK NOW!
My name is Kathryne Pirtle and I am a professional clarinetist with a national career. I play with the Orion Ensemble, which tours throughout North America and am Principal Clarinetist of the Lake Forest Symphony. I also often perform with the Lyric Opera, Ravinia Festival and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. I am 52 years old and at age 45 I nearly died from a severe digestive disorder. I had suffered from chronic pain for 25 years. However, I had followed all the healthy high-fiber, low-fat eating dictates that we are told are necessary to insure good health for my entire life. Excellent health is very important to me. I ate lots of salads, grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, a little meat, eggs and dairy and only vegetable oils—no butter.
However, this way of eating was making me very ill. Besides being in chronic pain, at 42 I began experiencing acid reflux, and I developed a severe digestive disorder at 45 which caused me to have chronic diarrhea. I was going to the bathroom about 15 times a day! At that time, I was eating only vegetables, fruit, meat and olive oil. I did not know what to eat or if I would survive.
Luckily, I learned of the work of Dr. Weston A. Price and the Weston A. Price Foundation. Dr. Price was baffled by the amount of chronic illness in his patients and traveled worldwide to see if there were cultures that had perfect health. He found 14 cultures that were immune to disease and had wonderful dental and physical health. Many of these cultures depended on raw milk for their high degree of wellness. Their diets all included ample amounts of nutrient-dense foods that were from animals eating their natural diets.
I began eating these foods—raw milk, cream, butter, bone broth soups, cultured foods, cod liver oil and pastured meats and eggs. I began to consume about a quart of raw milk every day along with lots of raw butter and cream. Gradually, not only did my digestive problems and chronic pain disappear, I have become healthier than ever before as I continue to eat these God-given unprocessed foods.
Not only did raw milk help to save my life, there is a growing worldwide movement of people who are discovering its important health benefits. I have given over 55 seminars across the country, written an important book called Performance without Pain, and given radio and television interviews sharing how nutrient-dense foods like raw milk can heal and build optimal health. I have spoken to the autism and mental health communities; to people suffering from food intolerances like gluten; to families and their children about maximizing learning, concentration and mental health through nutrient-dense foods; to performing artists and athletes and to people who are struggling with chronic illness. My book, website and seminars are an example of the effective information that is spreading throughout the world on helping people overcome the severe health challenges that we are facing today that cannot be ignored and need real solutions—NOW!
Our children cannot wait any longer for real food to be available to each and every person. We have hospitals being built for very sick children who need real food now. The time is now—we cannot wait any longer. We need raw milk now. It must be legalized in every state. The future of our children’s well-being depends on this!
Kathryne Pirtle
Who would have guessed that out of the 500 people who attended the hearing for the legalization of raw milk in Eau Claire, Wisconsin on Wednesday, March 10 and out of the 176 people who testified–the only negative information on raw milk came from a mere handful of paid representatives from food safety! It was a great day for raw milk!
People came from as far as France to testify to the enormous attributes of raw milk–it’s ability to heal and support optimal health when handled in a responsible manner by small family farmers and the ridiculous laws that have shamefully prevented people’s access to this perfect food. It was clear from the testimonies given by doctors, farmers, families, and young and old people from all walks of life–that people are demanding that their right to choose the foods they need to live healthfully and the legalization of raw milk is serious business.
Testimony from France discussed how in their country you could buy raw milk from vending machines! France has a long history of the safe consumption of raw milk, cream and butter. It was rather embarrassing to note how draconian our laws have been when the French have enjoyed raw milk for centuries. Dr. Ted Beals gave poignant testimony on the possibility of illnesses from raw milk being very small when proper care is taken in handling. He pointed out that you are more likely to be injured from the drive to pick up your raw milk than from drinking it! He also stated that sickness from raw milk can almost be totally obliterated if any people who are ill abstain from its handling in the milking and bottling and even purchasing phase. In fact he suggested that we pay raw milk employees who are sick to stay home and do not send sick family members to pick up the milk!
There was powerful testimony from Scott Trautmen, a well known Wisconsin pasture dairy farmer, that represented the experiences of small farmers in Wisconsin whose farms are in danger of being shut down. He talked of the pervasive, inexcusable criminal invasion by the Department of Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) of his farm and his passionate business to provide healthy foods to people in need. This criminal activity is reminiscent of the worst kinds of governmental harassment in the history of our country.
I talked about how raw milk was key in the many of the diets of healthy populations that Dr. Weston A. Price studied and that it was instrumental in saving my life. I also discussed the growing movement of people who are finding raw milk to be critical to their family’s health and that through the Weston A. Price Foundation and resources like my lectures, book, and website, people all around the world are understanding the need to return to nutrient-dense traditional foods.
Hours and hours of testimony were heard–starting at 10AM going on and on late into the evening! Countless people discussed over and over again that raw milk was necessary to sustain the health of the small family farm and that of the consumers of this traditional food, and that governmental intrusion needs to end immediately. We can easily access foods that have been known to cause illness from factory farms in our grocery stores and fast food restaurants–we can even freely eat raw foods like sushi if we so choose–it is time to have free access to raw milk!
Thankfully, Wisconsin’s legislators were all ears! They sat openly listening to all the testimony–the room was filled with the undeniable force of positive change. The hats worn all through each aisle read “MILK FREEDOM!”
THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN–LEGALIZE RAW MILK NOW!!
Best in Health,
Kathryne Pirtle
Below is an article about the absolute greed in health insurance companies that shouldn’t surprise a single soul. Building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods, removing mercury amalgams to reverse mercury toxicity in our bodies and putting your dollars behind traditional, sustainable agriculture will help protect you from needing to participate in a health system based on the bottom line. If you can work with progressive holistic practitioners for your health needs when at all possible to find the root cause of a health issue–one who also works with traditional foods, energetic medicine and homeopathy–hopefully you will be able to avoid most medical interventions. If enough people vote for real health insurance–that is real food and holistic approaches to health care–great change will come.
By gollies, the top executives of health insurance corporations are not giving up without a fight! To paraphrase every high school football coach who ever lived, “When the going gets ugly, the ugly get going.”
During the past several months, the Barons of Wall Street had established themselves as the vilest and most reviled corporate team in the land. They’ve been lavishing bonuses on themselves even as their firms continue to benefit from government bailout measures and even as ordinary Americans continue to struggle with the economic collapse caused by the bankers’ arrogance and avarice. Wall Streeters were widely considered a shoo-in to take the coveted Corporate Greedhead Trophy this year — but, holy cow, what a comeback bid we’re now seeing from the Giants of Insurance!
Let’s recap their amazing charge: Last week, the news broke that America’s five largest health insurance companies (United Health, Wellpoint, Aetna, Humana and Cigna) had scored record profits in 2009, totaling $12.2 billion. This was a stunning 56 percent hike over the previous year, a drive made all the more impressive by the fact that these gains came during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
As American families struggled financially last year, Team Insurance was able to boot 2.7 million more people out of their private health plans, leaving those folks in the corporate dust. In an even slicker, hidden-ball play, three of the five giants cut the proportion of premiums they spent on their customers’ medical care, shifting those premium dollars into corporate salaries, profits and administrative overhead. Even Wall Street’s Barons had to shake their heads in disbelief and marvel at the audacity of that play.
By the way, buried in that increase for the insurers’ administrative overhead was a little statistic that often gets overlooked: lobbying expenses. The Big Five spent $16.8 million last year to lobby against comprehensive reform of our health care system. You youngsters should take note of that, for such attention to detail is what builds a corporate champion.
The recession-time surge in insurance profits, the shedding of older and sicker customers, the lateral of more premium dollars into things like executive pay — these maneuvers alone would’ve moved health insurance up in the top tier of ugly industries. But then the industry ratcheted up its game another notch. One of Wellpoint’s subsidiaries heaved a “Hail Mary” pass that shocked everyone and catapulted insurance into a serious contender for the Greedhead Trophy.
In the same week that Wellpoint acknowledged that its 2009 profits were up by $2.3 billion over the previous year (a 91 percent increase), its Anthem Blue Cross subsidiary in California caused a sensation by seeking to raise the premiums on its customers’ policies by as much as 39 percent this year.
As befits a true Greedhead striver, Wellpoint neatly stiffed critics by asserting that this price hike was necessitated by the general increase in America’s health care costs — never mind that the corporation’s rise in premiums is actually 10 times more than the rise in the overall cost of health care. What a move!
However, whether Wellpoint’s daring California score will be allowed is in question, for there was a flag on the play. State insurance zebras are questioning the legitimacy of the increase, causing a company executive to argue heatedly that while tens of thousands of customers would indeed be socked with a 39 percent jump in their premiums, the average rate increase would be a mere 25 percent, so the play should be OK.
Come on, sports fans, ya gotta give ‘em some style points just for trying to get away with that.
Still, can the upstart Insurance Giants hope to out-ugly the more-sophisticated Wall Street Barons? The great thing about Corporate America is that competition is always fierce for the national greedhead title, and insurance is now in the running. As sportscasters can tell you: Only time will tell, it’s not over ’til it’s over, tomorrow’s another day, winners never quit/quitters never win, wait’ll next year, and it’s deja vu all over again.
Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the new book, “Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow.” (Wiley, March 2008) He publishes the monthly “Hightower Lowdown,” co-edited by Phillip
WHOLE FOODS PROMOTES MILITANT VEGETARIAN AGENDA
Has the Upscale Market Outlived Its Usefulness?
WASHINGTON, DC. February 3, 2010: Whole Foods Markets has launched a nationwide “Health Starts Here” marketing scheme that endorses a lowfat, vegetarian diet, with promises that the diet will “improve health easily and naturally.” The plan promotes the books and private business ventures of Joel Fuhrman, MD, and Rip Esselstyn, both of whom worked with Whole Foods to formulate the new guidelines. Customers now receive a pamphlet urging them to adopt a lowfat, plant-based diet and to cut back or completely eliminate animal foods. Many Whole Foods stores no longer sell books advocating consumption of meat, eggs and dairy products.
The plan will feature new Aggregate Nutrient Density Index (ANDI) labels for foods in the store; the index is designed to make plant foods to appear “nutrient dense” by favoring various phytonutrients in plants and ignoring many vitamins and minerals essential to health. “Whole Foods has stacked the deck against animal foods by choosing ANDI parameters that do not include a host of key nutrients, such as vitamins A, D and K, DHA, EPA arachidonic acid, taurine, iodine, biotin, pantothenic acid, and vital minerals like sodium, chloride, potassium, sulfur, phosphorus, copper, manganese, boron, molybdenum and chromium,” says Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation. “Many of the phytochemicals that Fuhrman includes in the index he developed for Whole Foods play no essential role in the body and may even be harmful.”
“Animal foods like meat, liver, butter, whole milk and eggs contain ten to one hundred times more vitamins and minerals than plant foods,” says Fallon Morell. “Plant foods add variety and interest to the human diet but in most circumstances do not qualify as ‘nutrient-dense’ foods.”
“For years before becoming deathly ill, I followed the dietary suggestions in the Whole Foods plan,” said Kathryne Pirtle, author of Performance without Pain. “I ate large amounts of organic salads, vegetables and fruits, lots of whole grains, only a little meat and no animal fat. I had chronic pain for twenty-five years on this diet, then acid reflux, then a serious inflammation in my spine followed by chronic diarrhea. Without switching to nutrient-dense animal foods, including eggs, butter and whole dairy products, not only would I have lost my national career as a performing artist, I would have died at forty-five years old! I am not alone in this story of ill health from a lowfat, plant-based diet, which does not supply a person with enough nutrients to be healthy and can be very damaging to the intestinal tract.”
“Consumers can send a message about Whole Foods’ misinformed scheme by voting with their feet,” says Fallon Morell. “Most major grocery store chains now carry basic organic staples and a larger array of organic fruits and vegetables than Whole Foods markets. And citizens should purchase seasonal produce and their meat, eggs and dairy products directly from farmers engaged in non-toxic and grass-based farming. It’s not appropriate for Whole Foods to promote a scheme that has no scientific basis and that bulldozes their customers towards the higher profit items in their stores.” The local chapters of the Weston A. Price Foundation help consumers connect with farmers raising animal foods in humane, healthy and ecologically friendly fashion.
“The growing emphasis on plant-based diets deficient in animal protein also serves to promote soy foods as both meat and dairy substitutes,” says Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food. “Soy is not only one of the top eight allergens but has been linked in more than sixty years of studies to malnutrition, digestive distress, thyroid dysfunction, reproductive disorders including infertility, and even cancer, especially breast cancer.”
“Low fat patients are my most unhealthy patients,” says John P. Salerno, MD, a board certified family physician from New York City. “The reason we are spiraling into diabetes and obesity is because of the lowfat concept developed by the U.S government decades ago. Lowfat diets have a low nutrient base, and phytonutrients in vegetables cannot be properly absorbed without fat.”
Fallon Morell cites recent studies from Europe showing that lowfat diets promote weight gain in both children and adults, and also contribute to infertility. A meta-analysis published January, 2010 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found no significant evidence that saturated fat consumption is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
“Whole Foods CEO John Mackay has stated that eating animal fats amounts to an addiction. But in fact, animal fats are essential for good health,” says Fallon Morell. “The nutrients in animal fats, such as vitamins A, D and K, arachidonic acid, DHA, choline, cholesterol and saturated fat, are critical for brain function. In the misguided war against cholesterol and saturated fat, we have created an epidemic of learning disorders in the young and mental decline in the elderly.”
“Perhaps the vegetarian diet has affected the thinking powers of Whole Foods management,” says Fallon Morell. “It’s time for the stockholders to insist on leadership devoted to increasing customer base, not promoting a personal vegetarian agenda.”
The Weston A. Price Foundation is a 501C3 nutrition education foundation with the mission of disseminating accurate, science-based information on diet and health. Named after nutrition pioneer Weston A. Price, DDS, author of the book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, the Washington, DC-based Foundation publishes a quarterly journal for over 12,000 members, supports 400 local chapters worldwide and hosts a yearly conference. The Foundation headquarters phone number is (202) 363-4394, westonaprice.org, info@westonaprice.org.
Comments about the Whole Foods Health Starts Here scheme can be emailed to customer.questions@wholefoods.com.
CONTACT
Kimberly Hartke, Publicist, the Weston A. Price Foundation
703-860-2711, 703-675-5557 press@westonaprice.org
Whole Foods is an awesome store for finding many of the nutrient-dense, pastured and wild-caught foods we need to build optimal health through the principles of the Weston A. Price Foundation. They are carrying pastured butter, meats and yogurt. They also carry high quality eggs, a wide array of wild-caught seafood and traditionally fermented vegetables and drinks. In fact, Whole Foods is helping to save the lives of thousands of seriously ill people who are desperately trying to find a source of these foods–Whole Foods is their only source.
I just received a disturbing letter from a dedicated reader who is concerned that Whole Foods may be turning into a vegan store:
“I have been shopping more frequently at Whole Foods and I notice they have a selection of health books that are all based on being a vegan or low fat vegetarian. Then when I was checking out, I was offered a pamphlet by the young man bagging my groceries. The pamphlet told me to implement the following: low fat, plants mostly, and to cut way back, or completely eliminate all animal foods. It encourages nutrient dense foods but seems to say that these come from plants only. Even a look at the books they promote now seem to be mostly along the lines of vegan, vegetarian, and low fat. Since when did Whole Foods get into the business of telling people how to eat? Makes me think they will do away with their seafood and meat departments at some point!”
For years before becoming deathly ill, my diet consisted of large amounts of organic salads, vegetables and fruits, grains, a little meat and eggs and no animal fat. I had chronic pain for 25 years on this diet, then acid reflux, then a serious inflammation in my spine followed by chronic diarrhea. Without learning about the work of Dr. Weston A. Price and the Weston A. Price Foundation–not only would I have lost my national career as a performing artist–I would have died at 45 years old!!! I am not alone in this story of ill health from this kind of diet–it simply will not provide a person with enough nutrients to be healthy over their entire life.
Now at 52, I have healed my digestive tract, been pain-free and have vibrant health from eating a nutrient-dense diet for the last 8 years. Whole Foods has been one of my partners in achieving this level of health. In my seminars across the United States, I recommend Whole Foods over and over.
We need Whole Foods to continue to be a partner to people of all dietary needs–not just veganism–because veganism may be a choice for some people, but it is not the answer for the majority. If this is an environmental issue for Whole Foods, please remember that sustainable agriculture based on traditional pasture farming is the ONLY way we will build our exhausted, nutrient-poor soils, as animals on pasture that provide nutrient-dense foods and build soil fertility are our sole vehicle to this means.
For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.
Best in health,
Kathryne Pirtle
Raw milk and freedom to healthy food won a major victory in Canada last Thursday. After years of suffering multiple raids to his bio-dynamic farm and being illegally charged with the unlawful distribution of raw milk to his cow share members, Micheal Schmidt’s case has finally been cleared. It has been declared that people who want to purchase raw milk from Michael’s farm through the cow share program can legally do this as Michael is not selling the milk to the public, but to people who knowingly and willingly desire to be part owners of the cows and foods they provide–that people entered in a legal contract that allows them access to the foods from the animals that they own.
The right to choose the foods you eat is an unalienable right. This ruling will give great momentum to the legality of purchasing healthy food through these type of contracts.
By David Gumperts–from his blog The Complete Patient
Author of The Raw Milk Revolution
Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 12:18PM
In a decision that took Ontario Judge Paul Kowarsky two-and-a-half hours to read, and sounded much of the time like a thoroughly researched legal treatise, raw dairy farmer Michael Schmidt was exonerated on 19 counts of violating the province’s milk laws.
At first, the judge sounded as if he was going to rule against Schmidt,when he said several times he had “no authority” to pronounce on legislation. His role, he said, was to determine “whether offenses occurred.” He then went through each of the 19 counts against Michael Schmidt, which stem from offenses that first occurred in 1994, when his Glencolton Farm was first raided by authorities.
He then went through the account of how two undercover agents from the Ontario Ministry of Health in 2006 acquired milk products from Michael Schmidt. The circumstances around that operation wound up influencing the judge’s ruling when he decided he had “reasonable doubt” about whether the acquisition of $6 worth of raw milk cheese from Michael Schmidt constituted a sale. That decision was essential to allowing the judge to then rule on whether cow shares are subject to Ontario milk laws.
In the end, the judge determined that cow shares are outside regulatory oversight based on the following:
Judge Kowarsky obviously gave the case a huge amount of time and consideration. He In addition to researching other cases, he reviewed cow share procedures in the United States and Australia,and rules regarding sale of raw milk in Europe. It made me wish that the New York state judge who ruled against Meadow Sweet Dairy on a very broad definition of the term “consumer,” might have done the same kind of analysis.
Max Kane, the owner of a Wisconsin raw dairy buyers club facing legal problems of his own, said, “I want that judge for my case.” He drove overnight from Wisconsin to Newmarket to hear the court decision. Another American raw milk “celebrity” in attendance was Tim Wightman of the Farm-to-Consumer Foundation.
Michael Schmidt was all smiles afterwards. “It’s an incredible relief,” he told me. Especially given the judge’s observation that the amount of potential fines had Michael been found guilty could have been “astronomical.”
Best in health,
Kathryne Pirtle
By Lisa Abend Monday, Jan. 25, 2010
On a farm in coastal Maine, a barn is going up. Right now it’s little more than a concrete slab and some wooden beams, but when it’s finished, the barn will provide winter shelter for up to six cows and a few head of sheep. None of this would be remarkable if it weren’t for the fact that the people building the barn are two of the most highly regarded organic-vegetable farmers in the country: Eliot Coleman wrote the bible of organic farming, The New Organic Grower, and Barbara Damrosch is the Washington Post’s gardening columnist. At a time when a growing number of environmental activists are calling for an end to eating meat, this veggie-centric power couple is beginning to raise it. “Why?” asks Coleman, tromping through the mud on his way toward a greenhouse bursting with December turnips. “Because I care about the fate of the planet.”
Ever since the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization released a 2006 report that attributed 18% of the world’s man-made greenhouse-gas emissions to livestock — more, the report noted, than what’s produced by transportation — livestock has taken an increasingly hard rap. At first, it was just vegetarian groups that used the U.N.’s findings as evidence for the superiority of an all-plant diet. But since then, a broader range of environmentalists has taken up the cause. At a recent European Parliament hearing titled “Global Warming and Food Policy: Less Meat = Less Heat,” Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, argued that reducing meat consumption is a “simple, effective and short-term delivery measure in which everybody could contribute” to emissions reductions. (See the top 10 green ideas of 2009.)
And of all the animals that humans eat, none are held more responsible for climate change than the ones that moo. Cows not only consume more energy-intensive feed than other livestock; they also produce more methane — a powerful greenhouse gas — than other animals do. “If your primary concern is to curb emissions, you shouldn’t be eating beef,” says Nathan Pelletier, an ecological economist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, N.S., noting that cows produce 13 to 30 lb. of carbon dioxide per pound of meat. (See where cows eat and what it means for the environment.)
So how can Coleman and Damrosch believe that adding livestock to their farm will help the planet? Cattleman Ridge Shinn has the answer. On a wintry Saturday at his farm in Hardwick, Mass., he is out in his pastures encouraging a herd of plump Devon cows to move to a grassy new paddock. Over the course of a year, his 100 cattle will rotate across 175 acres four or five times. “Conventional cattle raising is like mining,” he says. “It’s unsustainable, because you’re just taking without putting anything back. But when you rotate cattle on grass, you change the equation. You put back more than you take.” (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2009.)
It works like this: grass is a perennial. Rotate cattle and other ruminants across pastures full of it, and the animals’ grazing will cut the blades — which spurs new growth — while their trampling helps work manure and other decaying organic matter into the soil, turning it into rich humus. The plant’s roots also help maintain soil health by retaining water and microbes. And healthy soil keeps carbon dioxide underground and out of the atmosphere.
Compare that with the estimated 99% of U.S. beef cattle that live out their last months on feedlots, where they are stuffed with corn and soybeans. In the past few decades, the growth of these concentrated animal-feeding operations has resulted in millions of acres of grassland being abandoned or converted — along with vast swaths of forest — into profitable cropland for livestock feed. “Much of the carbon footprint of beef comes from growing grain to feed the animals, which requires fossil-fuel-based fertilizers, pesticides, transportation,” says Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. “Grass-fed beef has a much lighter carbon footprint.” Indeed, although grass-fed cattle may produce more methane than conventional ones (high-fiber plants are harder to digest than cereals, as anyone who has felt the gastric effects of eating broccoli or cabbage can attest), their net emissions are lower because they help the soil sequester carbon.
For the continued success of our local Wisconsin small family farms who produce our wonderful raw milk and some of the highest quality foods available to us please join the Wisconsin Raw Milk Alliance on Facebook. Pass this on to all of your friends!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=229022049416&ref=ts
Wisconsin Alliance for Raw Milk
WARM is Wisconsin farmers and consumers, and those from surrounding states, who are for the freedom and right to choose raw milk and other foods we want to consume to maintain and restore our health. We are for the right and freedom to farm the land and to share and trade in the bounty of our crops without government or corporate interferences.
To our continued strength in our right to choose healthy foods!
Merry Christmas!
Best in health,
Kathryne Pirtle
This video represents today’s issues of our continued access to foods that we choose to nourish our own bodies and provide for our children.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O2pZfiBJs0 We cannot underestimate the importance of our involvement in insuring that our basic right to choose the quality of the very foods that go into our mouth is respected.
Please become involved in the Weston A. Price Foundation and join the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund.
For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.
Best in health,
Kathryne Pirtle
The Declaration of Independence states that by our creator, we have unalienable rights as citizens to pursue life, liberty and happiness. Having this right also means we should be able to have the right to choose what kinds of foods we purchase and eat, which is in itself, the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness! As you probably know, right now, access to traditionally raised foods from small family farms cannot be taken for granted. These very foods from pastured animals–raw dairy, pastured meats, poultry and eggs–were the backbone of our people for thousands of years. However, today, while these foods are becoming more and more available and they are helping to heal people from chronic illness and build optimal health, governmental agencies are putting them under much scrutiny. Therefore, people need to be active in helping to insure that governmental over regulation does not cause your access to be affected.
On Monday, there is a rally in Viroqua,Wisconsin supporting Max Kane, who has a farm co-op. The members of the co-op own cow-shares, which means that they have the legal right to receive food from the animals they own. Governmental authorities have asked Max to give them the names, addresses and e-mails of people in the co-op. Because he refused to do so, he may be jailed for contempt of court. This type of harassment is happening to farmers from small farms all across the country. In fact, many farmers have been put in jail for selling these foods to their co-op members. For more information on the rally, See http://rally4rawmilk.blogspot.com/
As we search our hearts and minds for what is right, let us not be complacent in our actions to insure the health of our food supply, our people and generations to come. Please become involved with this issue through both the Weston A. Price Foundation at www.westonaprice.org. and become a member of the Farm to Legal Defense Fund at farmtoconsumer.org.
Supply and demand. When we support locally grown foods and those from small family farms who follow traditional farming techniques like pasture farming, we are improving the quality of foods that we have available to us. More and more people are turning to these foods to support optimal health.
Foods raised with traditional methods, such as dairy, eggs, meat and poultry from pastured animals have far more nutrients than foods from factory farms. Pasturing animals is also an ecologically sound system that puts nutrients back into the soil without polluting the earth from either fertilizers or the trucks that transport corn and cattle to factory farm systems.
Since your health is your wealth, by purchasing foods with the highest nutrients from farms that value the health of their animals, the earth and you, we can insure our choice of foods in the future.
See www.westonaprice.org and realmilk.com. for sources of pasture-raised foods.
For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.
Best in health,
Kathryne Pirtle
This important book gives insight into today’s challenge to keep the right to a supply of the nutrient-dense foods we need to nourish our bodies. Our book, Performance without Pain, www.performancewithoutpain.com is another story of the critical issue of how nutrient-dense foods are necessary for well-being, and how modern foods and dictates severely jeopardize health.
For a preview including the Foreword by Joel Salatin, Introduction, and part of Chapter One see http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/the_raw_milk_revolution:paperback/prepublication_preview
The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights
David E. Gumpert, Foreword by Joel Salatin
ISBN 9781603582193 ▪ $19.95 paperback ▪ 288 pages
“David Gumpert has chronicled the Raw Milk War with insight and humor. He provides an important record of systematic government bias against Nature’s perfect food. Must reading for raw milk fans and government officials alike.”
—Sally Fallon Morell, President, The Weston A. Price Foundation
“David Gumpert has become the official chronicler of the ‘raw milk movement’ in the United States . The Raw Milk Revolution is a highly readable expose that successfully captures how the controversy over raw milk is at the center of a larger battle between the industrial food system and the local food movement. Gumpert explains how raw milk, more than any other food, threatens proponents of the ‘germ theory,’ centralized food production, and the ‘nanny state.’ The Raw Milk Revolution is an extremely important book because it sounds a clear warning that upholding the right to produce and consume raw milk is critical in preserving our food freedoms in general.”
—Peter Kennedy, President, Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund
“The raw milk underground is one of the most contentious battlefields in the revolution to reclaim our food from industrialization, over-processing, and corporate control. In this book, David Gumpert investigates in great detail the health claims of both raw milk advocates and public health officials, as well the legal tactics being employed by government agencies to stop the growing movement to obtain and supply raw milk. His comprehensive analysis effectively deconstructs and illuminates the many complex issues of health, safety, and freedom that are raised by this debate.”
—Sandor Ellix Katz, author of Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods and The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America’s Underground Food Movements
On a summer visit back to the farm here where I grew up, I think I figured out the central problem with modern industrial agriculture. It’s not just that it produces unhealthy food, mishandles waste and overuses antibiotics in ways that harm us all.
More fundamentally, it has no soul.
The family farm traditionally was the most soulful place imaginable, and that was the case with our own farm on the edge of the Willamette Valley. I can’t say we were efficient: for a time we thought about calling ourselves “Wandering Livestock Ranch,” after our Angus cattle escaped in one direction and our Duroc hogs in another.
When coyotes threatened our sheep operation, we spent $300 on a Kuvasz, a breed of guard dog that is said to excel in protecting sheep. Alas, our fancy-pants new sheep dog began her duties by dining on lamb.
It’s always said that if a dog kills one lamb, it will never stop, and so the local rule was that if your dog killed one sheep you had to shoot it. Instead we engaged in a successful cover-up. It worked, for the dog never touched a lamb again and for the rest of her long life fended off coyotes heroically.
That kind of diverse, chaotic family farm is now disappearing, replaced by insipid food assembly lines.
The result is food that also lacks soul — but may contain pathogens. In the last two months, there have been two major recalls of ground beef because of possible contamination with drug-resistant salmonella. When factory farms routinely fill animals with antibiotics, the result is superbugs that resist antibiotics.
Michael Pollan, the food writer, notes that monocultures in the field result in monocultures in our diets. Two-thirds of our calories, he says, now come from just four crops: rice, soy, wheat and corn. Fast-food culture and obesity are linked, he argues, to the transformation from family farms to industrial farming.
In fairness, industrial farming is extraordinarily efficient, and smaller diverse family farms would mean more expensive food. So is this all inevitable? Is my nostalgia like the blacksmith’s grief over Henry Ford’s assembly lines superseding a more primitive technology? Perhaps, but I’m reassured by one of my old high school buddies here in Yamhill, Bob Bansen. He runs a family dairy of 225 Jersey cows so efficiently that it can still compete with giant factory dairies of 20,000 cows.
Bob names all his cows, and can tell them apart in an instant. He can tell you each cow’s quirks and parentage. They are family friends as well as economic assets.
“With these big dairies, a cow means nothing to them,” Bob said. “When I lose a cow, it bothers me. I kick myself.” That might seem like sentimentality, but it’s also good business and preserves his assets.
American agriculture policy and subsidies have favored industrialization and consolidation, but there are signs that the Obama administration Agriculture Department under Secretary Tom Vilsack is becoming more friendly to small producers. I hope that’s right.
One of my childhood memories is of placing a chicken egg in a goose nest when I was about 10 (my young scientist phase). That mother goose was thrilled when her eggs hatched, and maternal love is such that she never seemed to notice that one of her babies was a neckless midget.
As for the chick, she never doubted her goosiness. At night, our chickens would roost high up in the barn, while the geese would sleep on the floor, with their heads tucked under their wings. This chick slept with the goslings, and she tried mightily to stretch her neck under her wing. No doubt she had a permanent crick in her neck.
Then the fateful day came when the mother goose took her brood to the water for the first time. She jumped in, and the goslings leaped in after her. The chick stood on the bank, aghast.
For the next few days, mother and daughter tried to reason it out, each deeply upset by the other’s intransigence. After several days of barnyard trauma, the chick underwent an identity crisis, nature triumphed over nurture, and she redefined herself as a hen.
She moved across the barn to hang out with the chickens. At first she still slept goose-like, and visited her “mother” and fellow goslings each day, but within two months she no longer even acknowledged her stepmother and stepsiblings and behaved just like other chickens.
Recollections like that make me wistful for a healthy rural America composed of diverse family farms, which also offer decent and varied lives for the animals themselves (at least when farm boys aren’t conducting “scientific” experiments). In contrast, a modern industrialized operation is a different world: more than 100,000 hens in cages, their beaks removed, without a rooster, without geese or other animals, spewing out pollution and ending up as so-called food — a calorie factory, without any soul. August 23, 2009
This marvelous article from the New York Times reminds us how important traditional food from sustainable farms is to our country. By opting out of factory farmed food and getting back to the simple basics of connecting to farmers and real food, we will regain our own health as well as the health of our nation.
For more information about the book and seminars on this subject, see www.performancewithoutpain.com
