A Truly Rad Diet – Irradiated Foods
Lupus is greatly influenced by the food we eat and a clean diet of whole foods is best for us. The irradiation of our food, we’re told, increases food safety and promotes health. In truth, irradiation actually strips foods of most nutrients, leaving them essentially useless in a healthy diet. If only that were the worst of it but, this being the real world, it naturally, or unnaturally, isn’t. The irradiating process alters pesticides and chemicals already present in these foods, creating new combinations, with sometimes dire effects.
Escalated tumor rates, miscarriages and kidney damage are reported among animals fed irradiated foods. The range of irradiated foods includes fresh and frozen poultry, pork, lamb and beef, native and imported vegetables and fruits, wheat, eggs, spices, herbs, herb teas and sprouting seeds like alfalfa. Read the
facts on food irradiation at OrganicConsumers.org.
On November 25th, 2003, consumer watchdogs
Public Citizen and the
Center for Food Safety filed a
petition with the U.S. government, urging the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to finally ban irradiated ground beef. This action was taken after lab tests detected carcinogenic chemicals and genetic damage in meat samples.
USDA Approves Irradiated Meat for Schools On May 29, 2003, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) ignored overwhelming opposition from students, parents and teachers across America. Involuntarily, schoolchildren have been put on the mystery meat diet. Our new government policy seems to be to Leave No Child Behind on the way to the hospital. Come back in 10 or 20 years to see how little Jessie and Joey are doing.
Andrew Kimbrell, director of the Center for Food Safety, says "Allowing our national school lunch program to distribute this irradiated meat would be to use 27 million children as unknowing guinea pigs to test the safety of these products." Read the
press release at Public Citizen.
It’s very difficult to know just what we’re buying and although we’re told irradiated foods are originally labeled, those notices don’t always make it to our local markets. Visit Organic Consumers to read
Background and Status of Labeling of Irradiated Foods and feel your stomach churn.
Uncle Sam wants to be Big Daddy, ordering our food for us and telling us to clean our plates. This fatherly attitude is going global, as the US pressures other countries to buy American seed and food products for their own citizens’ consumption. After years of discussion and dissent,
Leaked Documents Show Britain Ready To Allow Limited GM Crops and other countries are caving in.
Whether we have lupus, diabetes or other diseases to contend with or not, we're better off when we're eating whole, healthy foods, not reinvented versions of them. We were all taught not to play with our food and, with these new games, everybody could lose but the profiteers. Please learn how to protect yourselves by watching what you eat.