SWAT type raids with guns aimed at unarmed families on small dairy farms? Confiscation of product and equipment with no proof of contamination, and no compensation for damage and loss? Is it because these dairy farms are just covers for drug operations or weapons stockpiling? Nope. They only produce raw milk. Uh-huh, a food that humanity has been consuming for hundreds of years before pasturization. Whoa now! better bring in the guns, this is dangerous! Or…could it be dangerous to one of the mythologies that industrialized large scale food production is built on? It’s the idea that food in it’s natural state is poisonous, and we must be protected from it. What if more people started drinking raw milk and experienced the health benefits? What, then, might happen to factory style dairy operations? Hmmmm.

Watch Farmageddon Movie here:

According to an Associated Press story, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that some chicken meat may contain small amounts of arsenic, though the agency is stressing that the amount is too tiny to be dangerous to people who eat it.

According to the U.S. government, the BP oil spill is old news and the Gulf of Mexico is fine. The FDA announced back in August 2010 that seafood from the Gulf of Mexico was safe to eat, and it was seemingly business as usual. Now, a pnj.com article reports that scientists and fishermen are finding an alarming number of fish from this area “with skin lesions, fin rot, spots, liver blood clots and other health problems.”

Last Wednesday, the FDA released details on the agency’s first new rules under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). The FDA now has the authority to detain food products for 30 days simply because it has “reason to believe” they pose a threat to food safety. Signed into law by President Obama this past January, the FSMA gave the FDA new authority to oversee facilities that grow and sell the nation’s produce, including the power to issue mandatory food recalls. As we have seen the FDA’s overzealous raids on raw dairy farms even prior to the enactment of the FSMA, this raises concerns for increased abuse of power.

Could raw milk cure asthma, allergies and other diseases? Why is the FDA conducting gestapo-type raids on small farms selling raw, unpasteurized milk and cheese?  Sally Fallon of the Weston A. Price Foundation and Kristin Canty, Director of the upcoming documentary, Farmageddon, a movie that documents the FDA’s opposition to raw milk, discuss this topic with the Food Integrity Now team. In studies involving humans, raw milk was shown to be superior to pasteurized in protecting against infection, diarrhea, rickets, tooth decay and TB; and children receiving had better growth than those receiving pasteurized milk. In the early 1900s, the Mayo Clinic administered the “Milk Cure” which consisted in drinking 4-5 quarts of raw milk per day, obtaining favorable results for a range of illnesses including cancer, weight loss, kidney disease, allergies, skin problems, urinary tract problems, prostate problems and chronic fatigue; these results are not obtained using pasteurized milk.  Farmageddon explores this controversial topic.

You know Barbara Kowalcyk, founder of The Center for Foodborne Illness Research and Prevention, from the hit documentary Food Inc. Her son tragically died from eating e.coli-tainted beef. Barbara has been making large strides towards increasing the safety of our food and was a recent recipient of The LennonOno Award for Peace. She took some time out of her busy schedule to call us from the Netherlands to talk about what’s going on with CFI, and to help us decipher S.510, the much debated Food Safety Modernization Act.

The internet was on fire these past two days after the FDA deemed AquaBounty’s genetically-engineered salmon safe for human consumption this past Tuesday. Bloggers and opinion columnist on both sides of the issue gave their best shots at influencing their readers and arguments raged in the comments. A call-in campaign started by The Center for Food Safety resulted in a flooding of the White House’s phone comment lines as people voiced their concerns over this genetically-engineered organism making it their plates. The FDA will hold a public hearing on this issue in Maryland on September 19 and 20th, after which it will decide the fate of this laboratory-born fish.