Grocery
Store Making You Sick? “Our stores might make you sick...”
And while the bugs and rodents present an obvious
health hazard (flies can carry E. coli on their legs and bodies), the pesticides that
stores employ in defense can be worse. “We've seen people go in and spray
pesticides [and] actually contaminate the food,” says Joe Corby, director of
the Food Safety and Inspection Division of New York's Department of Agriculture and
Markets. How can you tell if your seemingly
bugless supermarket is really safe? Good supermarkets employ a food safety manager to
ensure the foundation entrances are sealed and food shipments are inspected before they
hit the shelves — the best ways to prevent vermin from getting in. One red flag: old, faded stock. A
failure to rotate products properly gives insect eggs that have snuck in with grain
products time to hatch and create an infestation. “...and if they don't, our employees will.”
The problem, in part, is the nature of the workforce, which is typically unskilled. But management also shoulders plenty of blame. “The hours budgeted for cleaning are constantly under barrage by management, and it's hurt food safety,” says Carl Lafrate, president of ProCheck Food Safety Consultants, a Baldwinsville, N.Y.-based firm that designs food safety programs for grocery chains. Five years ago, “meat departments were cleaned every four hours, but now they've cut that out.” Indeed, in a recently published survey of U.S. supermarkets, the FDA found that more than half of deli workers didn't properly wash their hands and that 45% of meat department employees failed to keep surfaces sanitized. To find out how your store scores, request a copy of its most recent inspection report. In most jurisdictions, inspections are handled by the department of health, consumer affairs or agriculture. “Federal guidelines? Who cares?”
The food code, for instance, recommends that cold foods be kept at 41 degrees or lower, but most states set it at 45. The code also recommends that stores be given a maximum of 10 days to correct health violations; Vermont gives stores a month to comply. “Some localities are still using the 1976 code,” says Charlotte Christin, a food safety attorney for the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest. “There are pathogens that injure people every year that no one even knew about [in 1976], such as a deadly strain of E. coli.” Even if the local laws reflect high standards, they're not always enforced. “Most states require annual inspections, but that's often not taken seriously,” says Lafrate. “In a lot of states, inspections are generated only on a consumer complaint basis” — a good excuse to complain if your store looks sub par. “'Fresh' is a relative term.”
Surprise! Except for regulations about baby food and infant formula, there are no federal laws mandating product dating. In most states a retailer may legally sell foods beyond the date on the package as long as the product can be considered unspoiled and safe to eat. Even repackaging is legal. The FDA does requires that if dates are provided, they be accompanied by an explanatory phrase, but those phrases won't reveal much about the true state of the kielbasa in your cart: A “sell by” date simply tells the store how long to display the product, while a “best if used by” date can suggest when the product will lose its peak flavor or quality. Only an expiration date can be used by the supermarket as an indicator of whether food is still safe to eat. Not that you're likely to find one. In the majority of states, no type of freshness dating on food is required at all. “We like to play head games.”
How do supermarkets capitalize on your tendency to stray? They play soft music in the aisles, inducing you to relax and spend, says Richard Rauch, a professor of marketing at Long Island University who consults for supermarket chains. Some stores, he adds, even use special mood-enhancing lighting that filters out higher frequencies in the visible light spectrum. (Note this for “Electric..” article.) It produces only relaxing colors such as blues and purples, which reduce the rate at which your eyes blink. “It slows your pace and gets your mind to slow down,” says Rauch. “Using lighting to create an atmosphere is not an unusual tactic. Most of the larger, more sophisticated stores use it.” That bakery smells good, doesn't it? There's a reason those ovens are
always on full blast. “Studies
show the smell of baking bread drives people bonkers,” says Jain. The scent
drives up sales all over the store. “We haven't encountered these things,” says
Todd Hultquist, a spokesman for the Food Marketing Institute, a retail association. “Retailers
want to offer the best value, quality and selection. That's what drives sales.” (Oh frog snot! All they really want is your money.)
“Our product offerings are rigged.”
Many
manufacturers gladly pay such fees to score shelf space at eye level, where the products
are most likely to attract attention. But
other kinds of slotting fees stifle competition, hurt consumers and hold smaller
manufacturers over a barrel. Among the worst: “pay to stay” fees — regular
payments the manufacturer makes if it wants to sell its goods in the store. According to
Rauch, supermarkets make more than
half their profits on such fees. It's an issue that many small manufacturers
quietly accept for fear of angering the powerful supermarket chains. At a 1999 Senate
Small Business Committee hearing on the issue, some small manufacturers testified with
hoods and voice scramblers to conceal their identity. This reminds me of the “protection”
fees store owners used to pay to the Mafia in exchange for leaving them alone. Slotting-fee profits are passed to
consumers as lower prices, insists Hultquist. But Nicholas Pyle, vice president of the
Independent Bakers Association, says those fees force bakeries to increase
wholesale prices, which cancels out in-store savings. “Otherwise,” he
says, “they couldn't survive.” “Our scanners are a scam.”
The most common
errors are made on sale items, says Jerry Butler, a field supervisor with the North
Carolina Department of Agriculture's Standards Division. Usually, store management just neglects to enter
the sale price into the scanner system. (They
hate me for this – I go in with a list and note aisle sale price and if it doesn’t
ring up right, I call a halt for price check.) Tim Duffy says that jotting down prices and watching the
register can pay off more than you think. Over the course of one year, he
patronized California supermarkets that give customers an item for free if the scanner
rings up the wrong price. By year's end, he says, he took home more than $4,000 in free
food, which he donated to charity. Source: http://www.smartmoney.com/consumer/index.cfm?story=tenthings-august01&pgnum=2 Honest, We ain’t
Makin’ this Stuff Up Someone
recently accused us (we anti-NAIS folks) of making up stuff. They said that nobody is proposing chipping children…. Here is a press release direct from Digital Angel, the makers
and promoters of chipping pets, livestock, and children: The Company recently announced a substantial reduction in the size of
its Digital Angel emergency location device, which can include an ambient temperature
monitor and boundary alert functions. Roughly the size of a matchbook, the Company
believes the forthcoming device will have a variety of advantages in meeting the emerging location and monitoring needs of pets
and people, including at-risk seniors and children. See Digital Angel’s press release at: http://www.digitalangelcorp.com/about_pressreleases.asp?RELEASE_ID=70 Them’s just the facts, ma’am. You see, it isn’t
necessary to make this sort of thing up because the Multinational Corporate Power Mongers,
who own our Government, are already doing it for real. For adults they also have Real
ID (see http://www.realnightmare.org/) which
will soon be in your wallet if they have their way. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a
year or two they’ll have the tag down from matchbook sized to the size of an earring,
er, I mean ear tag… For your sheep and cattle of course… All part of the
national herd of consumers and taxpayers. The precursor to the above is already
happening at this very moment: Walt Disney World, which bills itself as one of the happiest and most
magical places anywhere, also may be one of the most closely watched and secure. The most
popular tourist attraction in the United States is beginning to scan visitors' fingerprint
information. http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2006/09/05/tech-disney.html and
the Washington Post says Rome City Schools is
switching to a scanning system that lets students use their fingerprints to access their
accounts. In the past, students had to punch in their pin numbers.
Movie Review or Field
of Intentions Advocate? The Secret is a rather long and repetitive film expounding upon quantum physics’ “Law of Attraction.” I think The Secret’s producers spent way too much time in “prosperity consciousness”—that is, appealing to people’s senses of greed and selfishness by explaining over and over again how, if you really obsess about it long enough, you will win that lottery and drive your Lamborghini into that six-car garage attached to the 30,000 square-foot home in paradise. But the core principle is absolutely in line with a belief I have held (and vocalized) for a long time: Intent is the most powerful force in the universe. Worth a read: http://idaho-observer.com/ The Vote is Counted About half of you sent a note saying you’d at least try to read
the “Your Body’s Electrical System” article, so I will proceed with putting
that together. I promise to not include any formulae or other higher mathematics
and to trim the really big scientific words as much as possible (although some will need
to be explained in footnotes – like for those of you who have no idea what a gauss[1]
is (Oh look, three of you just went to an online dictionary).J Because of the large number of graphics, footnotes, bibliography,
the need for multi-column format, etc., I plan to put this out as an attached .pdf file. I
could do it in MS Word, but then our Mac users couldn’t read it. If you do not have a
PDF reader on your computer, you can get a free download at: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readermain.html.
It will probably take me another month to finish this article, given all the outside
chores that need to be done before the cold and snow arrive in South Dakota. Note 1: The
"science" definition: A unit of magnetic flux density equal to 1
maxwell per square centimeter. A maxwell is a
cgs unit of magnetic flux equal to the flux perpendicular to an area of 1 square
centimeter in a magnetic field of 1 gauss. Seems to kind of loop around, doesn’t
it? I will do better than this… Watchdog 1. FDA advisory panels almost always
recommend approval for new drugs and devices. Eleven
randomly selected FDA advisory committees recommended approval for 79% of all prescription
drugs and medical devices that they considered during a seven-year period, according to a
study released on Monday by the National Research Center for Women & Families,
Bloomberg/Houston Chronicle reports. Read more at: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=19657
2. FDA intends to sign trade
agreement, accomplish end run around U.S. law and implement Codex. The Department of
Defense, its missing $3 trillion and agenda to contaminate the globe with depleted uranium
notwithstanding, the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration is currently the most out-of-control federal agency. It is
adopting and enforcing rules to
protect itself and pharmaceutical companies from liability for damages incurred by taking
the poisons they approve as medicines. The FDA is also working feverishly to remove
any possibility of people healing themselves with high-potency vitamins and herbal
supplements. Take the following account seriously. It is getting to the point where
the only thing standing between strict regulations on access to therapeutic doses of
vitamins and herbs is a little more time—and our commitment to preserve health
freedom. Our mission is to alert a lot of people in a short period of time because most
Americans have no idea that vitamin
C will soon be a prescription drug if the FDA has its way. The story can be read at: http://idaho-observer.com/ I’m waiting for them to try taxing sunshine (e.g., Vitamin D). 3. Got a bug problem? We live in the
woods and carpenter ants are a huge problem. We have spent thousands of dollars with Orkin
on ant poisons trying to keep them under control but nothing has helped. So when I read
somewhere that aspartame
(Nutrasweet®) was actually
developed as an ant poison and only changed to being considered non-poisonous after
it was realized that a lot more money could be made on it as a sweetener than as an ant
poison, I decided to give it a try. I opened two packets of aspartame sweetener, and
dumped one in a corner of each of our bathrooms. That was about 2 years ago and I have not
seen any carpenter ants for about 9 to 12 months. It works better than the most deadly
poisons I have tried. Any time they show up again, I simply dump another package of
Nutrasweet® in a corner, and they will be gone for a year or so again. How does it work: Aspartame is a neuropoison (sic – the correct word is neurotoxin). It most likely kills the ants by interfering with their nervous system.
It could be direct, like stopping their heart, or something more subtle like killing their
sense of taste so they can’t figure out what is eatable (er, edible - who wrote this?),
or smell, so they can’t follow their trails, or misidentify their colonies members,
so they start fighting each other. Not sure what causes them to end up dying, just know
that for many species of ants it
will kill them quickly and effectively. Read
more at: http://idaho-observer.com/ (You will have to search their index.) A note about the various non-sugar sweeteners: Aspartame
(found in NutraSweet® and Equal®) is a chemical combination of amino acids. That
combination is a neurotoxin to humans, other mammals, and obviously, carpenter ants (who
knows what other species it might kill). Saccharin (found in Sweet N Low®) is a
chemical derived from coal tar (which can contain the following heavy metals: Antimony, Arsenic, Beryllium,
Cadmium, Chromium, Copper, Lead, Mercury, Nickel, Selenium, Silver, Thallium, and Zinc, along
with other compounds you don’t want to eat, such as Benzene, Toluene,
Ethylbenzene, Xylene, Cyanide, Phenol, and Sulfates/Sulfides). While this sweetener has been approved by the FDA (so what haven’t
they approved, no matter how deadly it is?), a study suggests it might be linked to
bladder cancer. Sucralose (found in Splenda®) is a compound of sugar and chlorine
(a heavy yellow irritating toxic gas; used to purify water and as a
bleaching agent and disinfectant). Xylitol, on the other hand, can be
made from corn (don’t eat that one due to potential mycotoxin contamination) or birch
bark (the safe choice). Stevia is made from a plant of the genus Stevia, or
the closely related genus Piqueria, typically grown in Central and
South America. These last two sweeteners are not only safe, but they are not
artificial – Nature made them; man only extracted them. Guess which two in this whole
list will not be found in any supermarket. Yeah… follow the money trail. 4. Aug. 21, 2006 — The Battle over genetically altered food continues, even while it's use is increasing. Advocates say genetically modified biotech food is perfectly safe. Critics say it's food that's been fooled around with. Whether you find biotech food appetizing or appalling, one thing is for sure: Americans are eating more and more of it. Seventy-five percent of all processed food in the United States now contains ingredients from genetically modified crops. The food industry says if the product has corn or soybeans in it — and most processed foods do — it's probably been genetically modified. Even so, many shoppers have no idea they're already eating the food of the future. More at: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2337731&page=1 5A. WASHINGTON, Sept. 5, 2006 - The
safety of widely used silver fillings made with mercury will get another look this week in
light of persistent complaints that they may cause health problems. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14680800/ Interesting read, but you can count on
the FDA to side with the manufacturers. 5B. WASHINGTON, August 31, 2006 -
Ritualistic use of toxic mercury by followers of Voodoo and other religions is dangerous
but regulating it could drive the practice underground and possibly violate U.S.
guarantees of freedom of religion, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday. Mercury can be worn in
amulets, sprinkled on the floor, or added to an oil lamp as part of some Latino and
Afro-Caribbean practices including Santeria, Palo, Voodoo, and Espiritismo, according to
the EPA’s inspector general. … EPA staff decided to study the issue after the
Mercury Poisoning Project in February 2005 warned of “widespread mercury
contamination in Latino and Caribbean homes in the United States as a result of rituals.”
The rest of their story is at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14606749/ And after those practices kill their practitioners, what becomes of
their toxic substances? I do not normally try to interfere, in any way, with the religious
practices of others, and, indeed, my own credo says, “If it harm none, ‘do what
thou wilt’ shall be the whole of the law.” However, what these people are doing could
harm you. I do not have an answer for this one, but I think the use of mercury (a known
toxic substance) should not be allowed inside our borders. 6. But much of that money is wasted. In
fact, a government review found that two-thirds of U.S. dieters regained all the weight
they had lost within a year, and 97 percent had gained it all back within five years. From 10 diets that help you lose
pounds - and money at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14604784/ Think for a minute about that “man
on the mountain” quote I ended the last newsletter with. Each person who goes on a
fad diet will gain back everything s/he lost (if you lost anything besides money) as soon
as you go off that diet. See, you gave them money, but someone else pushed you up the
mountain, so you fell off. Want to stay on top of that mountain (in business or diet)?
Stand at the bottom, envision the route you will climb, make a plan (i.e., lifestyle
change), ensure you stick to it, then always keep moving forward. And, as I said before,
we can give you verbal (or typed) support, but you have to do the climbing yourself.
Place success in your Field of Intentions, get off your butt and
climb that mountain. You can do it! But no one else can do it for you. Seriously…
even if you are a multibillionaire and have all your fat liposuctioned out, if you do not
change your lifestyle and eating habits, it will come back. True success, sadly, is
a solitary journey. 7. 26 Aug 2006 - Polychlorinated
biphenyls (PCBs) have long been known to cause a variety of illnesses, from skin
irritation to cancer. A study suggests that the now-banned chemicals, which were commonly
used in electrical equipment and heavy machinery until the 1970s, are also causing
immunodeficiency in children… More at: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9860-pollutant-damages-child-immunity.html
8. 29 Aug 2006 - Genetic trophy hunters, beware. From Friday next week it will be illegal in the UK to covertly analyze someone's DNA. The Human Genetics Commission (HGC), which advises the UK government, says that such an act constitutes a "gross intrusion" on their privacy. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19125663.500-sneaky-dna-analysis-to-be-outlawed.html Not sure if you want to read that whole
article, but I sure wish someone would tell the U.S. government about their gross
intrusions on our privacy. Fix it, you congressional buttheads! 9. BOSTON, Aug. 29 — The Schering-Plough Corporation agreed on Tuesday to pay $435 million and plead guilty to conspiracy to settle a federal investigation into marketing of its drugs for unapproved uses and overcharging Medicaid for certain drugs. Read the article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/business/30drug.html?_r=1&ref=health&oref=login 10. Women who wear mainstream cosmetics products may be unknowingly applying as many as 175 different chemicals to their bodies every day, according to Chemical Safe Skincare at www.chemicalsafeskincare.co.uk/. Most popular beauty products contain a vast cocktail of chemicals, many of which have been linked to health problems such as cancer, hormone imbalances and skin irritation. A campaign group organized by manufacturers of natural products is calling for mainstream cosmetics makers to exhibit more information on their products' ingredients, as well as the side effects of such ingredients. We told you about some of the nasty chemicals used in beauty aids and household cleaners – including toothpaste – many many issues ago, but here is a comprehensive article with multiple links if you care to know: http://www.newstarget.com/020303.html 11. Drinking ‘raw’ milk could reduce children’s risk of suffering allergy-related conditions such as eczema and hay fever, new research suggests. British academics investigating why farmers’ families suffer fewer allergies than others found that even occasional consumption of raw — unpasteurized — milk had a powerful effect. Just a couple of glasses a week reduced a child’s chances of developing eczema by almost 40 per cent and hay fever by 10 per cent. Blood tests revealed that drinking raw milk more than halves levels of histamine, a chemical pumped out by cells in response to an allergen. It is thought the milk contains bacteria that help to prime the immune system. Yeah, at least one of the probiotics you need for digestion. And, if whomever is doing the milking keeps the containers clean, you also won’t get the bad bugs that some scientists claim for raw milk. Then again, it might help to know that many of those who declare so loudly in favor of pasteurization (which destroys the probiotics, the vitamins, etc.) are also in the employ of the milk-industry producers. Raw milk is all we drink here at Love Acres (and fresh brown eggs too, straight out of the chicken) and both of us are in the best state of health we have had in too many years to count. Raw milk has more useable nutrients – those added back on after pasteurization are not fully absorbed by your body because they are artificial chemicals and raw milk has Natural nutrients. It also tastes much better. As long as there is a cow near us, we won’t go back to store-bought milk. But you should read both sides of this issue, so check out: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=399520&in_page_id=1774 And I’d like to add that, although I’m back up to drinking almost a gallon a day of raw milk (and plenty of cream to boot), I haven’t gained a single pound. In fact, I’m still losing weight, but more slowly now. I now weigh the same as I did when I was a junior in high school.
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