Greenwash is a term that came from the fusion of the words green and whitewash and it’s a term that simply means that a company is misleading people regarding their environmental practices or claims. Green sheen has similarly been used to describe companies who shine up their eco-image without really making an effort.  Most of the time, the term gets used when someone notices that a company is spending more money on telling everyone how green they are, instead of using resources to operate with consideration for the environment.

Often products that claim to be environmentally friendly are simply less damaging than other products. Not really eco-friendly, just less dangerous to the planet and people. So how do you make a statement without being subject to the criticism?

Is silent better than sinner? Well, the quick answer is yes. If you’re going to exaggerate about your eco-efforts, step away from the microphone - for the sake of your company and everyone you are associated with.

Rosas Farms has provided Pragmatic Organic (SM) consulting services to Fortune 500 companies for many years now and our suggestion to all companies large and small is always the same: Don’t try and eat the elephant in one bite. This doesn’t mean you don’t have to eat at all, just make healthy marketing menu choices.  Remember, you may have to eat your words.

But how do you decide what to say?  The truth works.  It’s been said that companies that don’t have an eco-presence in our current environment will suffer the same fate as those that still don’t have a web-site and that might be true.  As we’ve shown in our Go Green Challenges to businesses, every business can do something. There are shades of green. Don’t let the competition to be ultra neon green keep you from doing nothing.  If you are neon green - go for it! Shout it out loud and be a forward thinking example. If you’re just learning to eco-speak, step up to the microphone and say what you know to be true about your company and don’t be afraid that it’s not enough. Do as much as you can right now and let your customers know you’re trying - if you really are.

Eco-statements are like those familiar seals of approval we all grew up.  We all want them to be there, but we also don’t ever want to find out that they aren’t true.

Questions posed on possible resistance and long-term consequences for animal and human health remained unanswered. Ten years later, the revelation that antibiotic resistance could be passed on from one bacterial species to another should have caused Parliament to repeal the legislation. It did not. In the United States, similar actions were taking place. Where are we today? This is just out: ScienceDaily (Feb. 22, 2008) — “It’s bad enough when pathogenic bacteria work their way into the animal food supply. Here’s a related problem that has recently attracted scientists’ attention: some of the pathogens may become resistant to the antimicrobials that are used to fight animal disease, and that might lead to more human resistance to the benefits of antibiotics.”

So the sign above is really an oxymoron. We’re getting all the free antibiotics we can handle.  We don’t need, nor can our planet take, ANY MORE!  We’ve eaten our way down a path of antibiotic resistance by allowing agriculture to pump us full of antibiotics in every conventional burger we eat, not to mention chicken and fish, yes, fish. Farm raised fish. Healthy right?

Here’s the fact. Farm raised means that the fish don’t get lots of swimming room, are prone to disease (and therefore fed antibiotics) and what’s worse is that we’re led to believe that a happy little fish farm somewhere is raising us healthy clean food.  Hog Wash. Did someone say Hog?  Oh yeah, I did.  Here’s why. Since the early 1950s, antibiotics have been used at subtherapeutic1 levels to promote the growth and overall health of livestock (Zimmerman). There has been concern for many years, and there is now a growing concern among health officials, physicians, veterinarians, and the public at large, regarding the diminishing efficacy of antibiotics in human and veterinary medicine (Levy; Mazel and Davies; McEwen and Fedorka-Cray; World Health Organization Director-General). Many fear that the practice of administering antibiotics at subtherapeutic levels over the course of an animal’s production cycle contributes to the accelerated development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria (Levy; Teuber).

Resistant bacteria can cause an antibiotic-resistant disease directly or they can pass the genetic material associated with resistance to other bacteria (Mazel and Davies), thus increasing the problems in disease treatment for both humans and animals. Resistant Salmonella that could cause food-associated illness in people have been documented in pork (Farrington et al.), and salmonellosis is a costly condition in humans (Buzby et al.). Growth-promoting antibiotics are widely used in U.S. pork production. A 1995 survey conducted by the National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) determined that over 91% of the operations surveyed reported using antibiotics as a disease preventive or growth promotant in feed (USDA/APHIS 1995). The extensive use of growth-promoting antibiotics by U.S. pork producers is summarized in Dewey et al. Using the NAHMS 1990 survey results, they described the use of in-feed antimicrobials across different stages of production. Of the 712 producers surveyed, 88% reported using antimicrobials in feeds.  So, no problem. We just buy the food at the supermarket that says it doesn’t have added hormones and antibiotics.  This isn’t just hog wash in some cases, its GREEN WASH.  

Know your farmer, know your food.  That’s your safest bet in this climate.  With organic “vertically integrated” companies cannonballing into organics, we see information like this: Tyson initiated a $70 million campaign to promote their no antibiotic no added hormone and insists the ionophores they used in chicken production are not antibiotics: “[they] are not used in human medicine and do not contribute to the development of antibiotic resistance to important human drugs. They remain in the intestinal tract of the animal and do not carry over into the meat consumed by humans.” And they claim they are not considered antibiotics by the FDA. Yet the USDA does.
Wikipedia says this: Ionophores disrupt transmembrane ion concentration gradients, required for the proper functioning and survival of microorganisms, and thus have antibiotic properties. They are produced naturally by certain microbes and act as a defense against competing microbes. In laboratory research, ionophores are used to increase the permeability of biological membranes to certain ions. Additionally, some ionophores are used as antibiotics. For more shocking news, go to Who Owns Organic and see where your organic food is really coming from.  Organics are a matter of trust. Always have been, always will be.

I know my farmer, I’m married to mine.  Please get to know yours before you buy your food.

As organic farmers, we realize the impact that properly farmed land can have on the carbon sequestration that is so very necessary to combat global warming. It’s so important to us that to lose even one more family farm for us is intolerable.

Unlike what our parents told us all, as far as getting home, we are not picky about who we ride with.  If people eat local and support local farming and organic and grass-fed because it’s hip, that’s great.  If health is your vehicle to the farmer’s market, fantastic.  Perhaps you’re a chef looking for the newest trend or you’re simply responding to customer demand, well, CHEF ON!  I just want a ride home.  Back to responsible farming, valuation of the food we eat and the farmers who grow it.  I couldn’t care less how I get there.

Just as the world is starting to wake up to the idea that we’re killing our planet, backsliding in life span for the first time in history and becoming a homogenized, plasticized world where it’s all the same, all a shame - they came in droves.  Organic opportunists.  Never mind that planting all that corn causes a nitrogen run-off that is ruining our ocean forever or that only a small fraction of the corn actually ends up as fuel.  High fructose corn syrup is ruining our Nation’s health and I’m supposed to believe that corn is our redeemer?   Not in my lifetime. 

The tiny little band-aid that the world is running to put on the eco-hemorrhage we’ve created is preposterous.  Like trying to empty the ocean with a spoon, business is running hard, creating distractions that lead us all to believe that it’s all going to be OK.  We can fix this!  We’re the best!  The problem is that the planet doesn’t read the newspaper, or listen to the TV and she really doesn’t care about your stock options, only her own stock. 

As a Country, we love the quick fix.  The answer is that there is no quick answer to our eco-crisis.   Everything in nature and on this planet is connected.  If you tug on corn, you’ll unravel the ocean.  If you on pull the thread of all the pseudo-saving planet protectors, it becomes more clear each day.  There are two types of eco-advocates.  Pirates and pioneers. 

(Sung to the Tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas)On the first day of Christmas, Agribusiness gave to me….
High Fructose … in everything we eat.

On the Second Day of Christmas Agribusiness gave to me…
Hormones in our Food

On the Third Day of Christmas Agribusiness gave to me…
Three Pesticides

On the Fourth Day of Christmas Agribusiness gave to me…
Quadruple By-pass

On the Fifth  Day of Christmas Agribusiness gave to me…
Five Beef Recalls

On the Sixth Day of Christmas Agribusiness gave to me…
No Family Farms

On the Seventh Day of Christmas Agribusiness gave to me…
Fast Food Chains Competing

On the Eighth Day of Christmas Agribusiness gave to me…
Factory Farms a Milking

On the Ninth Day of Christmas Agribusiness gave to me…
Lawmakers Dancing

On the Tenth Day of Christmas Agribusiness gave to me…
USDA Lying

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas Agribusiness gave to me…
Food Injectors Piping

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas Agribusiness gave to me…
Media a Drumming

I was visiting a local diner the other day when I offered to provide the owner our safe grass-fed organic beef.  I would have never offered, it’s just not the kind of place that can understand organic, but he had a disclaimer on the menu about how eating his hamburgers rare can cause you to become ill. He bragged to me about how he’s still the only place in town that serves them rare.  Every day at lunch, he fires his loaded gun into the crowd. “Never had a problem,” he said.  Never been sued is probably more accurate.  People often don’t realize when they’ve been infected.  A bladder infection, a stomach flu, how in the world does he know?

When I asked the owner if he wanted to serve a beef that had very little to no chance of causing e-coli infection, like all completely grass-fed beef (I was prepared to meet his price of his cheap meat, just to stop him), he raved about the company that he uses for his rare wonderful hamburgers.  This company he uses sells irradiated beef after having two of the Nation’s largest beef recalls in history in 2000 and 2001.  Watching him try to convince me how wonderful his beef was seemed surreal.  I had no idea how many people still have no idea how contaminated their meat is. C’mon! 

Jack in the Box e-coli beef sickened over 600 hundred and killed children 15 years ago. Don’t tell me you don’t know there’s a problem. Below is my dose of reality.  Once you read it, if you continue to eat conventional beef, well, you’re just avoiding reality.

It seems that nearly two decades in the field of organics has put me out of the conventional loop.  Persistent ignorance and avoidance of reality, unless it’s fake reality TV, is what the United States is becoming known for.  Sadly the truth is that conventional food is about as real as the last episode of Survivor. I read recently in USA TODAY that processed meat is a key culprit in the link to cancer.  The suggestion? Limit your red meat intake.   Absurd.  It’s like suggesting to limit your water intake because we found it contains hundreds of chemicals and bacteria, so only drink a little poison. People filter their water, they are so concerned about the quality they pay millions.  Turn on your meat filters people!  Demand clean, grass-fed and organic meats.  PROCESSED is the key word and culprit, not the meat.  We need to separate the adjective from the objective.

Here are my Top 10 Reality Burger Facts.

1) All humans and cows have e-coli, that is true, however beef recalls are caused almost all the time by 0157:H7, a form of e-coli caused by force feeding fed lot cattle so that their stomach acid rises to a level where this bacterium is present. It makes humans ill because it is stronger than what our bodies can fight off.  It didn’t exist until modern times and if you take an infected cow and put it on an organic all grass-fed facility, it will normally be rid of the bug in about 30 days.

2)  Corn is not what cows are supposed to eat.  Cows eat grass. They are not designed to eat corn, although it does cause them to be fat, but I’ll get to that later.

3)   Corn consumption causes cows to have gas, methane is what they call it. Methane clouds are caused by feed lots.

4)   90% of the conventional hamburgers that are eaten are not beef cattle; the meat comes from dairy cattle that haven’t produced enough milk in the last couple of days so they were yanked from their spot at the milk station where they’ve been standing in their own feces for the past months and turned into burgers. YUMMY.

5)   One family farm each hour in the United States disappears forever.  There are five million less family farms than there were in the 1950’s. http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/familyfarms

6)   Almost all the conventional beef served in the United States comes from less than 10% of the farms.

7)   In the 1950’s we had about 19 million dairy cows to produce the milk we needed for our relatively small population.  Today the United States has about 8 million dairy cows and produces an overabundance of milk for 300 million people, but of course they’re not using growth stimulants. Come on folks. Do the math; our daughters don’t need to be mature at 9 years old.  Our children are eating the hamburgers made from these dairy cows, not happy cows from cattle farms. It’s simply not true and ignoring the truth won’t make the beef any better for your children. Buy grass-fed organic beef.  If you stop eating beef, you just will feed your children more non-organic pesticide dipped  produce which will still cause hormone disruption.  There simply is no way around this. There are only two options here; ignore the truth or change.

8)   Fat comes from corn, fat makes estrogen. Fat from animals, saturated fat, clogs arteries.  Our USDA grades our beef on how much fat it has; the more fat, the better grade it gets.  Just how absurd that is in a country with rampant heart disease is just too much for me. Next, they’ll be spraying our beef in the production line with Lipitor instead of making farmers do the right thing.

9)   Corn is not good for cows. Corn is bad for cows. We are growing more corn that we ever have in this country and almost none of it is going to end up as biodiesel. The real truth is that corn uses tons of our fresh water and that 75% of our fresh water is used for crops.  We need to worry about water, not just oil and wake up to the fact that more pesticides are used to make corn than just about anything else.  Alternative fuel?  How about not using the car so much?  We don’t need to fire up the car every time we have to have a coffee or go to the dollar store. Just how ridiculous is this going to get?  Millions of dollars are going to already rich farmers as corn subsidies so that we can talk about biodiesel.  It’s simply not true.

10)  The last reality is one that we at Rosas Farms challenge anyone to answer.  We  own and operate an all grass-fed certified organic farm.  We raise our own beef.

I can’t make a 99 cent burger.  Hmmmm.

Although MRSA has traditionally been seen as a hospital-associated infection, community-acquired MRSA strains have appeared in recent years everywhere from schools to daycare to work environments.
What the media wants you to believe is that the over prescribing of antibiotics to worried mothers with screaming children is to blame - LIE #1.  They would also like you to believe that they can develop stronger and better drugs quickly that will save us all.  LIE #2.  What agribusiness wants you to believe is that agribusiness has nothing do to with the problem.  LIE #3.  To me, it’s the proof of the truth, not stated lies that influence my decisions. Junk science? Forget it.  Magnets and Noni Juice?  Not convinced.

The fact that 75% of antibiotics are used on agribusiness?  Hmmm.  If we’re eating more than we’re prescribing, what’s to be done when our bodies develop an infection?  The key word is RESISTANT in MRSA.  Just like our bodies become immune to other toxins and substances, we are starting to become immune to antibiotics.  Is it because mom is worried about an ear infection?  No way.  It’s because we’re eating tons of them in the form of feed lot cattle, meat and milk.

In late 2000, the FDA recommended banning a class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones in livestock. This class of drugs includes Cipro, used to treat gonorrhea and anthrax. The decision was based in part on a study that examined people who were sick because of a bacterium called campylobacter, which can build up after poultry is treated with other antibiotics for E. coli — another bacterium that can cause human illness. The research determined to a 90% confidence rate that human resistance to fluoroquinolones was increased when chickens treated with the antibiotics had been ingested.

According to the FDA, campylobacter is the most commonly diagnosed bacterial cause of food-borne illness in the USA. The agency estimates that campylobacter annually causes:
• 2.4 million infections
• More than 150,000 physician visits
• 13,000 hospitalizations
• 100 deaths annually

According to an article in USA Today, “People who consume chicken or turkey contaminated with fluoroquinolone-resistant campylobacter are at risk of becoming infected with bacteria that current drugs can’t easily kill.”

The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also have advocated banning fluoroquinolones.  “The massive amount of antibiotics used in agriculture around the world is primarily utilized to treat animals that are not sick,” says Dr. Tamar Barlam, director of the Antibiotic Resistance Project at the Center for Science and the Public Interest.

Giant meat businesses believe that the antibiotics profitably lower the food-to-animal weight ratio by eliminating the action of various bacteria in the gut.  “Basically, if the animal can put all its energy into digesting food and absorbing it, they can get fatter,” says Barlam. “But the data to support that is not very current, and we’re talking about increases of 4-5%.”  “The byproduct of this use of antibiotics is the same or very similar to the antibiotics we use in humans is that we create a human health problem in sections linked most directly to food,” says Barlam.

The dosages and amounts that may foster resistance to harmful meat-borne bacteria like salmonella vary, says the UCS. “Low dosages of antibiotics given over a long period of time are precisely what you would use if you wanted to intentionally develop resistant strains,” says Khoo. “Antibiotics are used in ill animals or humans at high doses over a short period of time exactly the opposite.”"The concern is that these resistant germs select out in the animals and create infections in us,” says Barlam. “The result is fewer treatment options and worse disease than otherwise. We don’t have that many new antibiotics coming down the pike, so we have to treat this as a serious problem at every step. That includes human use, but also not wasting these antibiotics in animals either.” 

Organic grass-fed meat or healthcare dollars, which is more expensive?

I know who’s lying.

By: Erin Rosas CHCC

But Johnny can’t read. Summer is over and he’s gone to seed
You know that Johnny can’t read. He never learned nothin’ that he’ll ever need.
- Don Henley

Years ago a study titled “Why Johnny Can’t Read” raised public awareness of illiteracy. Every day I educate families and companies on the dangers of what is in their food, how their actions are affecting their health, their future and the planet.
And every day, I’m shocked by just how bad it is. Why can’t Johnny eat? I see 20, 30, 40 year old men staring in disbelief as they learn the specifics of what they’ve been doing to not only their bodies but the planet. Many, but not all, come back to me and exclaim “Look at me! I’ve lost weight, and I feel great.” Then, like a child who has been given the key to learning, they say “Did you know…?” And the discovery begins, just as it does when a child starts school and becomes aware of what education is all about.

It’s the best part of what I do, educate. The question is, what ca we do about this epidemic facing us today? Why can’t Johnny Eat? Why aren’t we educating our children about the dangers facing them in the foods they eat every day? Eco-illiteracy is destroying not only the planet but the health of America’s children. As the years slip by with only meager attempts to stop the pandemic of diabetes, premature maturation and obesity, when will America respond appropriately to the fact that Johnny can’t eat? Johnny doesn’t know how, he has no access to the tools, the education, the food or the facts.

As Don Henley said, he’ll never learn nothin’ that he’ll ever need. Johnny learned how to use the fast food drive through, he learned how to suck down sports drinks and order “fries with that.” Johnny learned to get value for his dollar, the cheaper the better. What Johnny didn’t learn is that value doesn’t come in the form of 1000 calorie meals, that value is nutrition. Most children have no idea today how many calories they should eat and how many calories are in their food. They are ignorant of terms like protein, trans-fat and most outrageous to me of all have no idea what high-fructose corn syrup does to their bodies.

The absurdity is that the educators that have the responsibility for teaching them about food, their parents and doctors, are just as ignorant as they are. So it stands to reason that the reason Johnny can’t eat is because mommy can’t eat, daddy can’t eat, and their doctor can’t eat. When American families take a stand and force drastic steps at improving nutrition and education, when we stop this ridiculous cheapening of the American diet and this more is more mentality, until we finally learn that less is truly more, fewer chemicals, fewer calories, fewer additives, no one can eat.

1. Your “Five Bucks” coffee costs more than a pound of organic chicken in most stores.
2. Ready made hormone filled rotisserie chicken could buy a lot of organic milk. Use your food dollar wisely. Cooking: It’s where you bring the family back to life and life back to the family.
3. Store brand organics are nearly the same price as brand name foods and are often on sale.
4. Coupons, coupons, coupons
5. After-market stores often carry organics. Try your local scratch and dent.
6. Preparing food at home, especially in bulk is almost always less expensive than eating out, even if you’re eating fast food. The real cost of your fast food is for a completely different article. But, I digress. Remember leftovers? (No, not the kind in cute little white boxes.)
7. Organic Rice and Beans are grossly underrated nutritionally and financially.
8. The time spent waiting in line at a fast food drive through is exactly the same amount of time it takes to make organic scrambled eggs and toast with organic orange juice and burns way less gas. Breakfast is cheap. Who cares when you eat it?
9. Buy less expensive cuts of organic meat like organic chicken wings and legs or organic ground beef.
10. Eat less. You’ll likely live longer.

The idea was that they would use our name Rosas Farms and some of our products which are synonymous with organic and grass fed beef, to create a national steak house chain idea within their hotels. We immediately were equal to the task, thrilled that this huge corporation would take the lead in providing organic and great food to families and business travelers. We invited them to the farm, we cooked, and we prospected ideas and deals and nearly passed out when they told us very quickly and quite frankly, “By the way, all the beef will be irradiated.” WHAT!?

After we managed to catch our balance and breath we had the courage to ask them why in the world they would take our wonderful organic and grass fed beef and irradiate it?

“It’s a risk management thing, not negotiable,” I was told. I can’t tell you how quickly they left the farm that day but what I can tell you is that the big wigs that were there sampling our organic products still had sauce on their faces as we walked them to the car.

Grass fed beef can’t contain the specific kinds of E-coli that make humans sick, we protested! It’s part of the appeal nutritionally. It is in itself risk management. Alas, there was no room for education and therefore no room for our products in their hotels.

The duping of America is going on every day. All natural means literally all nothing. Organic dilution of products, the standards getting looser as the demand increases and organics become cool. The integrity of organics is the fight we fight every day at our company but this latest news has me writing this article.

Recently, the government proposed relaxing its rules on labeling of irradiated foods and suggested it may allow some products zapped with radiation to be called “pasteurized.”

The Food and Drug Administration said the proposed rule would require companies to label irradiated food only when the radiation treatment causes a material change to the product. Examples include changes to the taste, texture, smell or shelf life of a food, which would be included in the new labeling. An article in USA Today went on to say that the proposal also would let companies petition the agency to use other words than “irradiated”. The FDA posted the proposed revisions to its rules on irradiated foods on its website a day before they were to be published in the Federal Register.

A consumer group immediately urged the FDA to drop the idea. I don’t need to tell you what my comment was to the FDA.

The word pasteurized is considered by most Americans to mean something wholesome. How much more can they play with our food? The idea of raising the food properly to avoid contamination seems beyond what agribusiness can comprehend.

“This move by FDA would deny consumers clear information about whether they are buying food that has been exposed to high doses of ionizing radiation,” Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, said in a statement.

A 1984 FDA proposal to allow irradiated foods to go label-free cause the agency to receive more than 5,000 comments. Two years later, they published a final rule that requires the small number of FDA-regulated foods now treated with radiation to bear identifying labels, including the radiation symbol.

“We have long argued that the use of the term irradiation or radiation has such a negative impact on the consumer that it basically acts as a warning label,” said Jeff Barach, vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers/Food Products Association, an industry group. “Fixing this problem will help in food industry efforts to provide consumers with safe and wholesome foods with reduced risk of food borne pathogens.”

Foods still require FDA approval before they can be irradiated. The proposed rule would apply only to foods regulated by the FDA. If the rule is finalized, the Department of Agriculture will most likely petition the process to change the irradiation labeling requirements for the foods it regulates, including meat and poultry.

Action alerts on all topics of this nature with instructions for contacting the USDA can be found on the Cornucopia Institute Website: www.cornucopia.org
The Cornucopia Institute is a non-profit whose mission, The Organic Integrity Project, acts as a corporate watchdog assuring that no compromises to the credibility of organic farming methods and the food it produces are made in the pursuit of profit.