Usda Quotes

It's chick flick disguised as a sword-and-sorcery picture. The only genre film with less balls is probably... freakin' Legend. Anyone who actually enjoys Ladyhawke is a bona fide USDA-choice pussy!

Birds sold as free-range or free-roaming must be given access to the outside, however that is the ony requirement; the area to which they have access may be small, and consist of gravel and no forage of any kind. The term pastured or pasture-raised tends to be more meaningful, as this practice can affect the flavor and size of the birds...The term "natural" is unregulated and essentially meaningless. According to the current USDA standards, no poultry may be given hormones; thus, poultry labeled as "hormone-free" is akin to labeling bottled water "no carbs" or "fat free.

In order to be labeled organic, a crop must be grown without the use of certain synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, as specified by the USDA. Though produced with fewer synthetic compounds, organic vegetables are not necessarily tastier or more nutritious than their conventional counterparts. Also keep in mind that the certification process is often too expensive for small farms even though their practices may meet or exceed those set by the USDA. The smallest farms-those selling less than $5,000 worth of crops annually-may by law label their produce organic without being inspected or certified. Rather than rely on labeling, we prefer, when possible, to buy locally grown vegetables in their season.

Last year, the USDA said for the first time in 150 years that there were more farms in America instead of fewer. I think that's the single most hopeful statistic I know.

I TEND TO believe in government because it was the U.S. government that paid for my brain surgery when I was five months old and provided USDA food so I wouldn’t starve during my poverty-crushed reservation childhood and built the HUD house that kept us warm and gave me scholarship money for the college education that freed me. Of course, the government only gave me all of that good shit because they completely fucked over my great-grandparents and grandparents but, you know, at least some official white folks keep some of their promises.

Me and the folks who buy my food are like the Indians -- we just want to opt out. That's all the Indians ever wanted -- to keep their tepees, to give their kids herbs instead of patent medicines and leeches. They didn't care if there was a Washington, D.C., or a Custer or a USDA; just leave us alone. But the Western mind can't bear an opt-out option. We're going to have to refight the Battle of the Little Big Horn to preserve the right to opt out, or your grandchildren and mine will have no choice but to eat amalgamated, irradiated, genetically prostituted, barcoded, adulterated fecal spam from the centralized processing conglomerate.

Once upon a time, USDA inspectors had to condemn any bird with such fecal contamination. But about thirty years ago, the poultry industry convinced the USDA to reclassify feces so that it could continue to use these automatic eviscerators. Once a dangerous contaminant, feces are now classified as a "cosmetic blemish.

A nationwide study published by the USDA in 1996 found that [...] 78.6 percent of the ground beef contained microbes that are spread primarily by fecal matter. The medical literature on the causes of food poisoning is full of euphemisms and dry scientific terms: coliform levels, aerobic plate counts, sorbitol, MacConkey agar, and so on. Behind them lies a simple explanation for why eating hamburger meat makes you sick: There is shit in the meat.

Unless you eat foods clearly marked “Certified organic by the USDA,” you are taking part in a genetic experiment that is unprecedented in earth’s long history.

Nick ran smack into me. "Ooof!" he hollered, grabbing me around the waist to keep me from falling down the rest of the staircase. That's when I realized Mom thought Nick and I were going on a date together. Quickly Nick let me go.He looked huge, frowning down at me from the step above. "Why are you stopping in the middle of the stairs?" "Why are you tailgating me?" He put his hand behind me, at butt level, without touching me. "What is that?" he demanded. I bent a little and slapped my butt, "Something the heir to a meat fortune should know all about. USDA grade-A prime,baby." I straightened. "Just kidding. Really, it's my butt." He put his hands on his hips, and from below I noticed his strong superhero chin again.He grumbled, "Why do you have 'boy toy' written across your butt?" "Oh!" I put my hand over the words, realizing that I probably should have been embarrassed about this sooner. "These are my brother's jeans. He wrote it to annoy me. Or to get me a date.

To speak only of food inspections: the United States currently imports 80% of its seafood, 32% of its fruits and nuts, 13% of its vegetables, and 10% of its meats. In 2007, these foods arrived in 25,000 shipments a day from about 100 countries. The FDA was able to inspect about 1% of these shipments, down from 8% in 1992. In contrast, the USDA is able to inspect 16% of the foods under its purview. By one assessment, the FDA has become so short-staffed that it would take the agency 1,900 years to inspect every foreign plant that exports food to the United States.

The man needed USDA Prime tattooed up his flank.

One USDA scientist went so far as to claim that there has never been a documented case of food-borne illness from eating fermented vegetables.

Food safety oversight is largely, but not exclusively, divided between two agencies, the FDA and the USDA. The USDA mostly oversees meat and poultry; the FDA mostly handles everything else, including pet food and animal feed. Although this division of responsibility means that the FDA is responsible for 80% of the food supply, it only gets 20% of the federal budget for this purpose. In contrast, the USDA gets 80% of the budget for 20% of the foods. This uneven distribution is the result of a little history and a lot of politics.

An apple a day might have kept the doctor away prior to the industrialization of food growing and preparation. But, according to research compiled by the United States Drug Administration (USDA) today’s apple contains residue of eleven different neurotoxins—azinphos, methyl chloripyrifos, diazinon, dimethoate, ethion, omthoate, parathion, parathion methyl, phosalone, and phosmet — and the USDA was testing for only one category of chemicals known as organophosphate insecticides. That doesn’t sound too appetizing does it? The average apple is sprayed with pesticides seventeen times before it is harvested.

Most Americans don’t realize that our poultry supply is contaminated with fecal matter. Delmer Jones, past president of the U.S. Meat Inspection Union, described USDA labels as misleading to the public. He suggested, “The label should declare that the product has been contaminated with fecal material.”560 Eric Schlosser in Fast Food Nation proposed a more straight-forward approach: “There is shit in the meat.

Based on USDA data, the US per capita consumption (pounds per person per year) of beef from 1970 to 2020 fell an annual average of 34 percent with no health or environmental benefits. Yet we still blame red meat for nearly all health problems. This terrifies me as a physician.

A nationwide study published by the USDA in 1996 found that 7.5 percent of the ground beef samples taken at processing plants were contaminated with Salmonella, 11.7 percent were contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, 30 percent were contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus, and 53.3 percent were contaminated with Clostridium perfringens.

The USDA estimates that about 20% of food waste comes from confusion over the expiration date printed on items.

USDA’s chief flu researcher David Swayne recommended producers try to recoup the costs of culling by selling sick birds for human consumption.

Said USDA microbiologist Nelson Cox, “Raw meats are not idiot-proof. They can be mishandled and when they are, it’s like handling a hand grenade. If you pull the pin, somebody’s going to get hurt.” While some may question the wisdom of selling hand grenades in the supermarket, Cox disagrees: “I think the consumer has the most responsibility but refuses to accept it.

Widespread introduction of the process [of irradiating foods] has thus far been impeded, however, by a reluctance among consumers to eat things that have been exposed to radiation. According to current USDA regulations, irradiated meat must be identified with a special label and with a radura (the internationally recognized symbol of radiation). The Beef Industry Food Safety Council - whose members include the meatpacking and fast food giants - has asked the USDA to change its rules and make the labeling of irradiated meat completely voluntary. The meatpacking industry is also working hard to get rid of the word 'irradiation,; much preferring the phrase 'cold pasteurization.'...From a purely scientific point of view, irradiation may be safe and effective. But he [a slaughterhouse engineer] is concerned about the introduction of highly complex electromagnetic and nuclear technology into slaughterhouses with a largely illiterate, non-English-speaking workforce.

Both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior removed from their websites the links to climate change data. The USDA removed the inspection reports of businesses accused of animal abuse by the government. The new acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Mick Mulvaney, said he wanted to end public access to records of consumer complaints against financial institutions. Two weeks after Hurricane Maria, statistics that detailed access to drinking water and electricity in Puerto Rico were deleted from the FEMA website. In a piece for FiveThirtyEight, Clare Malone and Jeff Asher pointed out that the first annual crime report released by the FBI under Trump was missing nearly three-quarters of the data tables from the previous year.

The least filling food was croissants, while the most filling was plain white potatoes. The USDA reports that a small croissant and a medium potato both have about 170 calories. This study suggests you’d have to eat about seven croissants, 1,190 calories, to experience the same fullness you’d get from a single potato. The key quality that made a food filling: how heavy its 240-calorie serving size was.

One of the things that Eva hated the most about being a kid was how everyone always told her that childhood was the best time of their entire lives, and don't grow up too fast, and enjoy these carefree days while you can. In those moments, her body felt like the world's smallest prison, and she escaped in her mind to her chile plants, resting on rock wool substrate under a grow light in a bedroom closet, as much a prisoner of USDA hardiness zone 5b as she was.

As former senator Peter Fitzgerald noted, putting the USDA in charge of our nutritional guidelines is “like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.” USDA subsidies to farmers for growing specific crops total $19 billion annually.

It is a veritable revolving door of jobs between the USDA and Big Ag and Big Food. Americans should insist on the establishment of a new Department of Food run through the Department of Health and Human Services, which is paying for the consequences of harmful dietary recommendations through Medicare and Medicaid. In

He conducted interviews with nearly a hundred USDA poultry inspectors from thirty-seven plants. “Every week,” he reports, “millions of chickens leaking yellow pus, stained by green feces, contaminated by harmful bacteria, or marred by lung and heart infections, cancerous tumors, or skin conditions are shipped for sale to consumers.” Next

The popular media and conventional wisdom, including the medical profession's traditional approach to nutrition, have created and continue to perpetuate this problem through inadequate, outdated dietary counseling. Attempts to universalize dietary therapies so that one-diet-fits-all influences the flawed claims against meats and fats, thereby encouraging overconsumption of grains. Government-sponsored guides to healthy eating, such as the USDA's food pyramid, which advocates six to eleven servings of grains daily for everyone, lag far behind current research and continue to preach dangerously old-fashioned ideas. Because the USDA's function is largely the promotion of agriculture and agricultural products, there is a clear conflict of interest inherent in any USDA claim of healthful benefits arising from any agricultural product. Popular beliefs and politically motivated promotion, not science, continue to dictate dietary recommendations, leading to debilitating and deadly diseases that are wholly or partly preventable.

Big food companies make hot dogs with mechanically separated meat (msm) that, as described matter-of-factly by the [USDA], is "a paste-like and batter-like meat product produced by forcing bones with attached edible meat under high pressure through a sieve or similar device to separate the bone from the edible meat tissue.". I read that and wanted to unread it.

That’s weird. ’Cause many high-ranking staff members at the USDA were employed by, or are otherwise affiliated with, the meat and dairy industries.159 And if the group responsible for “the safety of meat, poultry, and egg products” is run by people from the same industries they’re supposed to be protecting us from . . . well, that would be a conflict of interest. And it is.

In April 2013, Judicial Watch released e-mails proving that the U.S. Department of Agriculture was working hand in hand with the Mexican government to sign up illegal aliens for food stamps.

Some USDA inspectors have expressed grave concern about the unhygienic conditions in meat plants, and yet they have little voice to enact change. They no longer have the authority to stop the line if they notice something suspicious, nor can they take remedial action. In fact, in order for a federal inspector's complaint to be seriously considered, the company itself must agree that there is a problem.

So let’s consider an alternative diet, say 1200 kcal consisting of 30% protein, 15% carbs (i.e., 180 kcal or 45 grams), and 55% fat. After a week or two of getting adapted (during which you may experience some of the fuel limitation symptoms discussed above), your serum ketones rise up in the range (1-2 millimolar) where they meet at least half of the brain’s fuel supply. Now if you go for that 5 mile run, almost all of your body’s muscle fuel comes from fat, leaving your dietary carb intake plus gluconeogenesis from protein to meet the minor fraction of your brain’s energy need not provided from ketones. And, oh yes, after your run while on the low carb diet, your ketone levels actually go up a bit (not dangerously so), further improving fuel flow to your brain. So what does this mean for the rest of us who are not compulsive runners? Well, this illustrates that the keto-adapted state allows your body more flexibility in meeting its critical organ energy needs than a ‘balanced’ but energy-restricted diet. And in particular, this also means that your brain is a “carbohydrate dependent organ” (as claimed by the USDA Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee as noted in Chapter 3) ONLY when you are eating a high carbohydrate diet. When carbohydrate is restricted as in the example above, your body’s appropriate production of ketones frees the brain from this supposed state of ‘carbohydrate dependency’. And because exercise stimulates ketone production, your brain’s fuel supply is better supported during and after intense exercise when on a low carbohydrate diet than when your carbohydrate intake is high (see below).

With the American people facing an epidemic of obesity andnhardened arteries, the "People's Department" [USDA, United States Department of Agriculture) doesn't regulate fat as much as it grants the [food] industry's every wish. Indeed when it comes to the greatest sources of fat--meant and cheese--the Department of Agriculture has joined industry as a full partner in the most urgent mission of all: cajoling the people to eat more.

A recent USDA report says that our consumption of meat is at a “record high,” and this impression is repeated in the media. It implies that our health problems are associated with this rise in meat consumption, but these analyses are misleading because they lump together red meat and chicken into one category to show the growth of meat eating overall, when it’s just the chicken consumption that has gone up astronomically since the 1970s.

The question is, why is the USDA in charge of the country’s nutrition anyway? In 2003 the Chicago Tribune reported the comments of Senator Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.)15: “The primary mission of the USDA is, after all, to promote the sale of agricultural products…So putting the USDA in charge of dietary advice is in some respects like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.” So who should be in charge of our nutrition? How about anyone without a vested interest in pushing the poison?

[from an entry by her daughter Camille] On the other hand, if cattle remain on pasture right to the end, that kind of beef is called "grass finished." The difference between this and CAFO beef are not just relevant to how kindly you feel about animals: meat and eggs of pastured animals also have a measurably different nutrient composition. A lot of recent research has been published on this subject, which is slowly reaching the public. USDA studies found much lower levels of saturated fats and higher vitamin E, beta-carotene, and omega-3 levels in meat from cattle fattened on pasture grasses (their natural diet), compared with CAFO animals ... Free-range beef also has less danger of bacterial contamination because feeding on grass maintains normal levels of acidity in the animal's stomach. At the risk of making you not want to sit at my table, I should tell you that the high-acid stomachs of grain-fed cattle commonly harbor acid-resistant strains of E. coli that are very dangerous to humans ... Free-range grazing is not just kinder to the animals and the surrounding environment; it produces an entirely different product.

More than any USDA rule or regulation, this transparency is their best assurance that the meat they're buying has been humanely and cleanly processed. "You can't regulate integrity," Joel is fond of saying; the only genuine accountability comes from a producer's relationship with his or her customers, and their freedom "to come out to the farm, poke around, sniff around. If after seeing how we do things they want to buy food from us, that should be none of the government's business." Like fresh air and sunshine, Joel believes transparency is a more powerful disinfectant than any regulation or technology.

Bring on the veggies In 1980, the first Guidelines directed consumers to “Eat foods with adequate starch and fiber.” By 1990, that had become “Choose a diet with plenty of vegetables, fruits, and grain products.” Today, the new, direct directive is to make half of your plate vegetables and fruits. Maybe the whole plate: The Guidelines say right out, no mincing words here, those vegetarian-style diets are associated with a variety of health benefits including lower weight, a lower risk of heart disease, and — best of all — a longer life. Finally, two new charts, Appendix 8 and Appendix 9, detail (respectively) “Lacto-ova Adaptations of USDA Food Patterns” (meal planning for vegetarians who eat dairy products)

The room held her scent, that elusive fragrance that sometimes reminded him of spring flowers and other times made him think of summer afternoons and ripe peaches. Gracie seemed to be part of all the seasons. The warm glints of autumn shone in her hair, the clear light of winter sun sparkled in those intelligent gray eyes. He had to keep reminding himself that she wasn't a U.S.D.A. prime-cut female because lately he'd had a tendency to forget. It was just . . . She was so damned cute.

In America, where the USDA’s interpretation of the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act exempts chicken slaughter, the voltage is kept low — about one-tenth the level necessary to render the animals unconscious. After it has traveled through the bath, a paralyzed bird’s eyes might still move. Sometimes the birds will have enough control of their bodies to slowly open their beaks, as though attempting to scream. The next stop on the line for the immobile-but-conscious bird will be an automated throat slitter. Blood will slowly drain out of the bird, unless the relevant arteries are missed, which happens, according to another worker I spoke with, “all the time.” So you’ll need a few more workers to function as backup slaughterers —“kill men” — who will slit the throats of the birds that the machine misses. Unless they, too, miss the birds, which I was also told happens “all the time.” According to the National Chicken Council — representatives of the industry — about 180 million chickens are improperly slaughtered each year.

The USDA has been in cahoots with these guys since its inception in 1862, because it has always had the dual mandate of protecting American agricultural interests and advising the public about food choices. In plain speak, this is called “the fox guarding the henhouse.” Or as my father likes to say, “This would be like having Al Capone do your taxes.

In 1995, the meat industry did everything it could to stop the USDA from implementing food-safety regulations that would require testing for salmonella in ground beef.

We know now that fructose is a chronic hepatotoxin, just like alcohol. However, because fructose does not get partially metabolized by the brain like alcohol, we do not get any of the instant effects acute alcohol consumption brings. In everything else, both substances are the same. But this lack of acute toxicity is exactly why the FDA and the USDA won’t regulate it—in addition to the economic hit American producers would take if it were announced that fructose is a toxin that leads to metabolic syndrome and its host of disorders.

Fighting wildfires is the most visible thing the USDA does. It's the places in our government where the cameras never roll that you have to worry about most.

In 2001 Science featured an article, “The Soft Science of Dietary Fat,” that argued a low-fat diet is not necessarily healthful and that the public had been misled about the relative merits of fat and starch.16 A few years ago Scientific American declared: “It’s time to end the war on salt: the zealous drive by politicians to limit our salt intake has little basis in science.”17 About the same time the Department of Agriculture tossed out its iconic food pyramid for a food plate and juggled several of its recommendations.18 Recently the USDA was reported to be poised to recommend that Americans eat less meat—not because it’s better for individuals, but because it may be better for the environment, which indirectly could affect our health too.19

The USDA has always suffered from a conflict of interest, since its entire mission is to promote American food commodities, and the agency has long been heavily influenced by those very industries.

When they heard that Joel Leftwich, the guy Trump wanted to lead his USDA transition team, had been a lobbyist for PepsiCo, they brought in a mini-fridge stocked with Pepsis. That was just the way they were at the USDA. They didn’t think: How the fuck can people paid to push sugary drinks on American kids be let anywhere near the federal department with the most influence on what American kids eat? Instead they thought: I hear he’s a nice guy!

Jenny Hopkinson, a Politico reporter, obtained the curricula vitae of the new Trump people. Into USDA jobs, some of which paid nearly $ 80,000 a year, the Trump team had inserted a long-haul truck driver, a clerk at AT& T, a gas-company meter reader, a country-club cabana attendant, a Republican National Committee intern, and the owner of a scented-candle company, with skills like “pleasant demeanor” listed on their résumés. “In many cases [the new appointees] demonstrated little to no experience with federal policy, let alone deep roots in agriculture,” wrote Hopkinson. “Some of those appointees appear to lack the credentials, such as a college degree, required to qualify for higher government salaries.

In terms of antioxidant bang for your buck, açai berries get honorable mention, beating out other superstars, such as walnuts, apples, and cranberries. The bronze for best bargain, though, goes to cloves, the silver to cinnamon, and the gold for most antioxidants per dollar—according to a USDA database of common foods—goes to purple cabbage.24 Açai

At the 1956 International Food Congress in Rome—one year before Joe Coulombe would open Pronto Markets—the USDA set up an “American Way exhibit.” It featured the first fully stocked supermarket outside of the United States.

Some recommendations on diet and nutrition are misguided because they are based on inadequate or incomplete information. That wasn’t the case for the USDA’s pyramid. Its recommendations were wrong because they ignored solid evidence on healthful eating and aimed to please various food lobbies.

The standard American diet only rates an eleven out of one hundred. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates, 57 percent of our calories come from processed plant foods, 32 percent from animal products, and only 11 percent from whole grains, fruits, beans, nuts, and vegetables.2804 In other words, on a scale of one to ten, the American diet only rates about a one. Why

this restaurant runs on U.S.D.A. organic, freshly squeezed unicorn farts.  It’s fucking amazing.

Sinclair James International Review: What to With Your Pets on a Flight Most of the times, most pet owners do not know what to do with their pets when on a flight. To make it easier, we have allotted today’s feature for pet owners and address their challenges when flying with their pets. Whether you are flying with your pet or it is flying without you, it is important to choose an airline that serves the entire route from beginning to end. After finding your airline, you will need to know their pet policies. Will the airline allow your dog or cat to fly in the cabin with you? What are the restrictions? Will your pet need to travel in the cargo hold? Health Certificate A health certificate is required when shipping your pet as cargo. Most airlines will require a health certificate for all pets checked as baggage. Some destination states may require a health certificate for your pet such as health cities like Manila, Philippines or Singapore. It is best to ask you veterinarian for more requirements. If a health certificate is required, it must be issued by a licensed veterinarian within 10 days of transport. It must be authentic and not fraud. Airlines now have a lot of ways to know the authenticity of your documents. It must include: • shipper’s name and address • tag numbers or tattoos assigned to the animal • age of the animal being shipped (USDA regulations require animals be at least 10 weeks old and fully weaned before traveling) • statement that the animal is in good health (If the shipper knows that the pet is pregnant, it must be noted on the health certificate) • list of administered inoculations, when applicable • signature of the veterinarian • date of the certificate Live Animal Checklist/Confirmation of Feeding When you check in your pet, you will be asked to complete a live animal checklist. When you sign this checklist, you are confirming that your pet has been offered food and water within four hours of check-in. On the checklist, you must also provide feeding and watering instructions for a 24-hour period. If in-transit feeding is necessary, you must provide food. This is to avoid any complaints of improper handling of animals on board. Tranquilizers The use of pet tranquilizers at high altitudes is unpredictable. If you plan to sedate your pet, you must have written consent from the pet’s veterinarian. This information must be attached to the kennel. Please keep in mind that some airline agents cannot administer medication of any kind.

Before World War II, there was no such thing as organic food. All food was organic. Food was just food—plants, grains, meats, and dairy that we could all recognize or grow. There were no long lists of ingredients on packages that you couldn’t pronounce, much less have any idea what they did to your body or the environment. In 1938, the USDA’s Yearbook of Agriculture was called Soils and Men, and it remains a handbook of organic farming today, but back then that was the norm.

Grass has it tough,” Shad observed. “The buffalo trample it, eat most and cover the survivors in crap. It just supports my theory that all vegans are secret supporters of genocide.” “How do you figure?” Derek asked, mainly to pass the time. “Think about it: you get hundreds of burgers from one cow, but a salad will kill two or three plants, and a sprout sandwich will slaughter hundreds. People don’t become vegans for any other reason than the idea of mass slaughter. To be kosher animals have to be killed without trauma or pain, and the USDA rules likewise set standards for slaughterhouses. But who cares how much planets suffer? They get ripped apart under the most callous of conditions. Therefore vegans change their diet simply to inflict the maximum suffering and death upon a chosen population, and that meets the textbook definition of genocide.

As Joseph T. Judd, a USDA biochemist and a central figure in trans-fat research, explains, “The scientific literature would be flooded with enough contradictory studies so that no one could conclude anything for certain.” One study would show a bad effect of trans, “but for every study showing bad effects, there was one showing the opposite—something from industry,” he said. Generating a lot of conflicting scientific findings was a tactic that industry has employed to great effect, since uncertainty is a climate in which a questionable ingredient can thrive.

The USDA’s ranking of foods by antioxidant capacity lists small dried red beans as having the highest antioxidant capacity per serving size of any food tested; in fact, of the four top-scoring foods, three were beans (red beans, red kidney beans, and pinto beans).

For thirty to forty years, industry cranked up trans all it could,” confirmed a trans-fat expert at the USDA.

Foreman believed McGovern’s Dietary Goals supported her conviction that “people were getting sick and dying because we ate too much,” and she believed it was incumbent on the USDA to turn McGovern’s recommendations into official government policy. Like Mottern and Hegsted, Foreman was undeterred by the scientific controversy.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), 16% of men and 13% of women ages 20 to 39 eat pizza every single day.

the USDA prohibited farms that received grain subsidies from growing fruits and vegetables. This put the American government in the insane position of subsidizing the cost of fast food while actively prohibiting some farms from growing fruits and vegetables.

Explosive population growth in much of Asia was making it less and less plausible that nations like India, Pakistan, and the Philippines would ever be able to feed themselves. In Famine—1975! America’s Decision: Who Will Survive? William and Paul Paddock argued that a Time of Famines would soon lay waste the developing world. “The famines are inevitable,” they warned. And “riding alongside [them] will surely be riots and other civil tensions which the central government[s] will be too weak to control.” The Paddocks derided the naïve hope that “something [would] turn up” to forestall this doom.102 And the Paddocks were not alone in their assessment. Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich, for example, argued that Famine—1975! “may be remembered as one of the most important books of our age.” The Rockefeller Foundation shared these men’s sense of urgency. But, rather than advocate a triage system (as the Paddocks did), in which the worst-off nations would be denied assistance and left to their Darwinian fate, the foundation looked for new ways to attack the problem. The foundation had first extended its agriculture programs to India in 1956, at the request of the Indian national government. In the ensuing years, Rockefeller partnered with USAID and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Together, they “helped establish five state agriculture universities in India. ” 103 These universities collaborated with their American counterparts on research and training. As it had in Mexico, the foundation thereby contributed to the development, in India, of a community of homegrown agriculturalists with access to the most advanced technologies in the world.

A major factor influencing the nation’s dietary policies is the revolving door that shuttles industry leaders into roles as legislators and government regulators, then back into industry. Members of the USDA have had known associations with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Pork Board, the National Livestock and Meat Board, the American Egg Board, ConAgra Foods, the National Dairy Council, and Dairy Management Inc.4,5 In other words, health care, nutrition policy, and agribusiness are all tucked cozily together in a king-size bed.

With the postwar depression, however, the farmers' problems became the bankers' problems, and the insurance companies', and the USDAs. Suddenly, everyone was interested in helping the farmer become modern.21

Our government’s laws, subsidies, and diet education efforts (grain-based USDA food pyramid, anyone?) are seemingly driven more by lobbyists for the beef, grain, and dairy industries than by unbiased scientific evaluation and concern for human health.

USDA regulations spell out precisely what sort of facility and system is permissible, but they don’t set thresholds for food-borne pathogens. (That would require the USDA to recall meat from packers who failed to meet the standards, something the USDA, incredibly, lacks the authority to do.)

Salmonella is both common and potentially lethal. It infects more than a million Americans each year, sending nineteen thousand victims to the hospital, and killing more people than any other food-borne pathogen. A recent U.S.D.A study found that twenty-four per cent of all cut-up chicken parts are contaminated by some form of salmonella. Another study, by Consumer Reports, found that more than a third of chicken breasts tainted with salmonella carried a drug-resistant strain.

mad-scientist approach to dairy production has created a monster cow who, according to the USDA national agricultural statistics on milk production, currently yields about 45 pounds of milk per day, significantly more than she would produce in nature. By comparison, USDA statistics reveal that milk production for the average dairy cow in 1960 was only about 20 pounds per day. As a result of this outrageous increase, cows’ bodies are under constant stress and at risk for numerous infections, diseases, and other health problems.

The USDA’s “Dairy Management Practices” report indicates that approximately one in seven dairy cows in the United States suffers from clinical mastitis, a painful bacterial infection of the udders that is exacerbated by accelerated milk production. In advanced stages, mastitis can be fatal; it is the second leading cause of death in dairy cows who die prior to slaughter. Mastitis, termed a “production disease,” is one of the most frequent and costly afflictions in intensive dairy production. In fact, mastitis is, and has been, such a common and financially catastrophic ailment that the dairy industry established the National Mastitis Council in 1961 specifically to study and combat this disease.

The most reliable pork and chicken label is “USDA Organic” (used mainly for meat and much different from the FDA’s version of organic), which requires a 100 percent organic diet, no antibiotics (ever), and bans feed made with synthetic pesticides. For poultry shoppers, Smart Chicken is a national brand owned by Tecumseh Poultry, founded in 1998 to fill the void in the quality chicken market. It comes in organic and regular versions, both of which are completely antibiotic and animal by-product free, using a 100 percent vegetarian or 100 percent organic vegetarian diet. I buy Smart Chicken regularly. For pork, the Niman Ranch brand is antibiotic free with a 100 percent vegetarian diet.

Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready” (Revelation 19:6–7). As you pull up a chair to the banquet table, take a look at what’s on the menu from Isaiah 25:6–8: “On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.” There’s no mistaking. This is a real banquet. And a specific one too. They won’t be serving bologna or Spam. It won’t be USDA-approved meat; it will be “the best of meats.” And the beverage selection will not be Kool-Aid or cheap wine, but “aged wine…the finest of wines.

All canned tomatoes are pressure cooked, also reducing lectins. Look for USDA organic, preferably peeled and seeded.

USDA statistics, as of 2012, showed 99 percent of durum wheat, 97 percent of spring wheat, and 61 percent of winter wheat as part of the harvesting process had been doused with Roundup, the world’s

In a Washington Post interview, the former USDA chief economist Joe Glauber acknowledged the hypocrisy of the farm lobby taking a stand against income testing for eligibility for farm subsidies, while “you have a knockdown drag-out over whether you’ll give SNAP payments to someone earning $26,000 instead of $25,000. Give me a break.”21

Celebrate vegetables and fruits: Cover half of your plate with them. Aim for color and variety. Keep in mind that potatoes don’t count (see “The Spud Is a Dud” on page 167). THE HARVARD HEALTHY EATING PLATE Figure 1. The Harvard Healthy Eating Plate was created to address deficiencies in the USDA’s MyPlate. It provides simple but detailed guidance to help people make the best eating choices. • Go for whole grains—about one-quarter of your plate. Intact and whole grains, such as whole wheat, barley, wheat berries, quinoa, oats, brown rice, and foods made with them, have a milder effect on blood sugar and insulin than white bread, white rice, and other refined grains (see chapter six). • Choose healthy protein packages—about one-quarter of your plate. Fish, chicken, beans, soybeans, and nuts are all healthy, versatile protein sources. Limit red meat, and try to stay away from processed meats such as bacon and sausage (see chapter seven). • Use healthy plant oils, such as olive, canola, soy, corn, sunflower, and peanut, in moderation. Stay away from foods containing partially hydrogenated oils, which contain unhealthy artificial trans fats (see “Trans fats,” page 83). If you like the taste of butter or coconut oil, use them when their flavor is important but not as primary dietary fats. Keep in mind that low-fat does not mean healthy (see chapter five).

Grain crops, such as wheat and oats, also became more plentiful after World War II, often running to surplus. It isn’t difficult to draw a line between grain surplus and the federal government’s emphasis on grains in the American diet. When the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) started recommending dietary standards in 1946, grains got the lion’s share of daily recommended servings and dairy enjoyed its status as an entire food group. Nuts were nowhere to be found.