A Shock to the System

I am a beer drinker. No secret.

I have always considered my humble pastime to be relatively free from interference; the same interference that has befallen softdrinks/sodas.

But alas, not. The brewing industry has become tainted with the same bullshit.

8 Beers That You Should Stop Drinking Immediately!!!

Many of us choose what we eat very carefully, or at least dedicate our minimum attention to it. But when it comes to drinks, especially alcoholic beverages, we do little to make the best decisions for our health. Which is a HUGE mistake. All the work for your body can be ruined in a weekend out. While foods and non alcoholic beverages are required to list their ingredients and are monitored by the FDA, beer does not belong in either. Alcohol industry had lobbied for years to avoid labeling its ingredients. Some to protect its recipes, but most – to hide harmful ingredients.

Here’s some harmful ingredients that are commonly found in beer:

• GMO Corn Syrup
• GMO Corn
• High Fructose Corn Syrup
• Fish Bladder
• Propylene Glycol
• Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)
• Natural Flavors
• GMO Sugars
• Caramel Coloring
• Insect-Based Dyes
• Carrageenan
• BPA
• & lots more!

Here are the 8 beers that are commonly found in bars in United States that you should stop drinking immediately.

1. Newcastle Brown Ale

The Newcastle beer has been found to contain caramel coloring. Class 3 and 4 caramel coloring is made from ammonia, which is classified as a carcinogen. “The one and only” beer with cancer causing qualities.

2. Budweiser

One of the most popular beers, or most advertised is Budweiser. Budweiser contains genetically modified (GMO) corn. In 2007, Greenpeace discovered experimental GMO rice in Anheuser-Busch (Budweiser) beer.

3. Corona Extra

I used to love Corona’s commercials. They were so peaceful and relaxing. That is until I found out that the beer contains GMO Corn Syrup and Propylene Glycol. Propylene Glycol is controversial, and is said to may be potentially harmful to your health.

4. Miller Lite…

Source: Be like Water read about the other tainted beers, see what beers are GMO free and which are organic.

Opinion:

Now that they have stuffed up beer, it is proof that NOTHING is sacred anymore.

I always considered that beer was sacrosanct, sadly it appears not.

Rather ironic, just Tuesday, a service rep from the largest brewing corporation in South America was decrying that certain beers now contain corn; none of his companies beers was among them. This company produces/distributes Budweiser…

The ad for Budweiser – “Good times are coming!” Oh, yes, they certainly are, if you are a zombie; and if you’re not, then you soon will be.

Monday Moaning

The world is head over heels in love with bio-fuels and fracking. The latter fraught with problems over excessive water use, pollutant chemicals, earthquakes. The former with diverting staple foods to energy.

Now a US government report tells us that bio-fuels may not be all they’re cracked up to be…

Corn biofuels worse than gasoline on global warming in short term – study

• $500,000 study paid for by federal government
• Conclusion: 7% more greenhouse gases in early years

Biofuels made from corn residue have attracted more than $1bn in federal support. Photograph: Marvin Dembinsky Photo Associate/Alamy

Biofuels made from the leftovers of harvested corn plants are worse than gasoline for global warming in the short term, a new study shows, challenging the Obama administration’s conclusions that they are a much cleaner oil alternative and will help combat climate change.

A $500,000 study – paid for by the federal government and released Sunday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change – concludes that biofuels made with corn residue release 7% more greenhouse gases in the early years compared with conventional gasoline.

While biofuels are better in the long run, the study says they won’t meet a standard set in a 2007 energy law to qualify as renewable fuel.

The conclusions deal a blow to proponents of cellulosic biofuels, which have received more than a billion dollars in federal support but have struggled to meet volume targets mandated by law. About half of the initial market in cellulosics is expected to be derived from corn residue.

The biofuel industry and administration officials immediately criticised the research as flawed. They said it was too simplistic in its analysis of carbon loss from soil, which can vary over a single field, and vastly overestimated how much residue farmers actually would remove once the market gets underway.

Read more

Opinion:

Of course the biofuel industry would be squealing like stuck pigs over this report, because they’re about to be made into bacon.

The report shreds the advantage of biofuels in the short term.

It may mean that governments across the globe have to backpedal in their thinking.

But, of course, we know they won’t.

Change the World Wednesday – 22nd Jan

One of the last photos taken the previous weekend.

Not an auspicious start to CTWW, unfortunately, I have toothache and have had it since Saturday, off to the dentist this morning being his first day open since the public holiday on Monday. And, even worse, Cloro has done a bunk. I haven’t seen him since Sunday when we had a play in the yard late in the evening. So today is the third day. I am hoping that he is just being a randy Tom cat, and will come home when he has satisfied his cravings and demand breakfast.

It’s wonderful to be able to welcome Small back after her hiatus and she has presented us with the first CTWW of 2014. Happy New Year Small.

This post I am going to translate into Portuguese as I go, because it affects us here in Brazil too; and hopefully this post will bring some awareness.

Click on the banner for the full post

The challenge.

FIRST …Please visit Organic Consumers Association and read “Tell the FDA: No Watered-Down, Voluntary Federal GMO Labeling Rules!”. For additional information on this topic, scroll to the bottom of the page for links. You can also visit this PAGE for recent articles. Read through the information to lean about the GMO issue.

Por favor, visitar os enlaces em cima, e ler as informações (são em inglês)

THEN … If you live in the US and agree, sign the petition.

OR … If you don’t live in the US, please find out what your country’s policies are concerning GMO food and labeling. Are they accepted? If so, must they be labeled? If they aren’t accepted in your country, are there any other food health concerns which you are facing?

OU …

Sé você não mora na USA, por favor busca infromações sobre as politicos sobre OGM (Organismos geneticamente modificados) comidas a clasificação dos OGMs As etiquetas. São aceitaveis? É o lei? Sé não são aceitaveis, tem mais coisa sobre a saúde da comida que está enfrentando?

Here in Brazil the labeling issue is almost unknown, despite the fact that Brazil has encompassed the GMO philosophy totally.

Aqui no Brasil o problema com etiquetas está quasi não conhecido, apesar de fato que Brasil rodeado a filósofia dos OGMs totalmente.

“About 91 percent of Brazil’s soybean crop, which is likely to be the largest in the world when it is harvested early next year, has been planted with GMO seeds.”

“Nearly 71 percent of the first of two annual corn crops planted in Brazil has been planted with genetically modified seeds”

Aproxidamente 91% da soja que provavalmente vai ser o maior no mundo quando está coletado o proximo ano, está creado com OGM sementes.

Quasi 71% dos primeiro dois coletas do milho estão com OGM sementes. – Reuters

Brazil is also growing GMO  cotton.

Brasil etsá tambem criando OGM algodão.

“Brazil is the second largest producer of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the world, behind only the United States.” – Epoch Times

Brasil está a segundo maior produtor de organismos geneticamente modificado no mundo, só atras os USA.

Labeling:

“The sale of GMOs was banned in 1998 due to a lawsuit by the Brazilian Institute for Consumer Defense. But in 2003, the government again permitted the marketing of GM products with regulations. In the same year, the Brazilian government issued the Labeling Decree (4680/2003), which requires producers and sellers to identify on food packaging products that contain more than 1 percent GM raw materials.” – Epoch Times

A venda de OGMs era banido in 1998 por caso de um processo pelo o Instituto para Defesa do Consumidor. Mas em 2003, o governo de novo permitiu a venda de OGM produtos com regulamento. No mesmo ano, o governo brasileiro decreto a requeramento para vendadores e produtores identifica produtos que contem 1% de materias OGM.

I have never seen labeling that says the contents contain GMOs.

Eu nunca viu etiquetas com essa tipo de aviso.

Studies:

Surprisingly, there are only eight studies in Brazil relating to the safety of GMOs; none of these studies approve GMOs as safe.

“Coelho asked, “What studies provided the basis for the permission of CTNBio for commercial release of GMOs if in the sample [studies] analyzed by us all claim that such foods are not safe?”” – Epoch Times

Coelho perguntou, “O que pesquesas provicenciou o base para a permissão do CTNBio para o lancamento comercial quando todos as pesquesas falam que essas comidas não são seguro.”

All official reports are labeled as confidential.

Todos os relatorios são confidenciais.

So there is an issue in Brazil, but the public are not aware of the pitfalls, they are not informed; and worse generally the education of the people is not sufficient for them to make them aware of the dangers.

Então temos um problema em Brasil, mas o povo não estão ciente dos perigos. eles não estão informados; e pior generalmente a educação do povo não é suficiente para fazem eles ciente dos perigos.

Esse é um assunto para tudo mundo.

NB: Sé você é brasileiro, estamos muito interessado ne sua opinão, deixar uma comment, e não criticar meu português, por favor, eu sei está ruim.

UPDATE:

Have you ever wondered why it’s so hard to get these labeling requirements passed?

It’s because the issue is no longer statewide, it’s federal, and there are some big guns out there lying in ambush, read on…

Industry’s Secret Plan to Get the Feds to Kill GMO Labeling in Every State

By Michele Simon,

Internal documents from the Grocery Manufacturers Association reveal height of corporate chutzpah. Industry’s solution to GMO labeling is to: “Pursue statutory federal preemption which does not include a labeling requirement.”

With the disappointing results now in from I-522, the initiative in Washington State that would have required labeling of genetically-engineered food (aka GMOs), the looming question is, what’s next? At least for the junk food lobby, that answer in painfully clear: Stop this state-level movement at any cost. In today’s New York Times, Stephanie Strom reports on the dirty details contained in industry documents that I obtained from the Washington State attorney general’s office in the wake of a lawsuit brought against the Grocery Manufacturers Association for illegally concealing donors to the No on 522 campaign.

As I explained back in February, the food industry’s ultimate game plan to stop the bleeding in the state-by-state onslaught of GMO labeling efforts is to lobby for a weak federal law that simultaneously preempts or trumps any state-level policy. While we have known that industry would want to put an end to the public relations nightmare happening state by state, this document for the first time reveals the lobbyists’ specific strategy.

The details are even worse than I thought and give new meaning to the word chutzpah. I had predicted a federal compromise, where industry would agree to a weak form of labeling in exchange for stripping state authority. But what industry wants instead is to stop state laws to require labeling, while not giving up anything in return. In their own words, the game plan is to “pursue statutory federal preemption which does not include a labeling requirement.”

Let me repeat that: The junk food lobby’s “federal solution” is to make it illegal for states to pass laws requiring GMO labeling. Period. End of story.

Source: Food Democracy Now read more, because that’s not the end of this story.

Satireday on Eco-Crap

Must be GMOs…

 

Make you Fink on Friday

I have been thinking lately, and regular readers will know that when I do, the results can be nasty.

I am going to tackle Russia today.

But not in a Cold War style. James Bond already did that.

Since the Second World War, the mere mention of Russia (or as it was then the USSR) brought shivers to the spines of many a patriot.

But the Iron Curtain faded, rusted and then tumbled and with it the Cold War as we knew it.

But with the American Empire crumbling… Oh, you think it’s not, then you must watch Fox News. Believe me, it’s crumbling on the edge of a cliff and about to topple into an abyss of a depression like we’ve never seen before. America’s problem is a myopic view that the American Dream is alive and well; sorry, but it’s a really sick puppy. America fell into the trap set by the bankers and corporations heedless of the welfare of the people.

Sure America had a brief heyday in the 60s & 70s, but that’s gone.

Russia is the only country in the world to buck the system; to turn it’s back on a couple of things that have made me think that maybe, just maybe, Russia is on the right track in some respects.

In the mid-1970s Russia banned microwaves. Now you may think that is pretty silly, until you look at the latest reports on how they f**k-up food beyond all recognition. More recent studies have shown that microwave ovens totally alter the structure of food, so much so, that it isn’t food anymore.

Yes, Russia made a good move.

Microwaves should be banned globally, but of course that’ll never happen. The microwave oven market is big. Corporations like this because there’s a lot of profit. Because the corporations run America, America will continue to have microwave ovens and obesity, yes, microwave ovens are a part of the obesity problem.

Yesterday, I read of another move by Russia.

Russia suspends import and use of American GM corn after study revealed cancer risk

• The European Food Safety Authority orders review in to the research, conducted at a French university
• Russia’s decision could be followed by other nations
• Experts at the University of Caen conducted an experiment running for the full lives of rats – two years
• The findings found raised levels of breast cancer, liver and kidney damage
• The same trials also found minuscule amounts of a commonly used weedkiller, Roundup
• Both the GM corn and Roundup are the creation of US biotech company Monsanto

Russia has suspended the import and use of an American GM corn following a study suggesting a link to breast cancer and organ damage.

Separately, the European Food Safety Authority(EFSA), has ordered its own review in to the research, which was conducted at a French university.

The decision by Russia could be followed by other nations in what would be a severe blow to the take-up of the controversial technology.

Cancer risk? A farmer shows two corncobs of genetically engineered corn by U.S. company Monsanto, right, and two normal corncobs from Germany, left

Historically, biotech companies have proved the safety of GM crops based on trials involving feeding rats for a period of 90 days.

However, experts at the University of Caen conducted an experiment running for the full lives of rats – two years.

The findings, which were peer reviewed by independent experts before being published in a respected scientific journal, found raised levels of breast cancer, liver and kidney damage.

Read more

Opinion:

The world is beginning to wake and smell the coffee.

People who are concerned with their health should be pressing the government to enforce product labeling.

 

 

Make you Fink on Friday

Conundrum

Sacrificing water for fuel

Bio-fuels are hailed as the saving grace by reducing reliance on petroleum.

But wait…

Corn, a plant that is used to make bio-fuels is very very thirsty.

Here’s the conundrum…

Are we merely replacing petroleum based fuels with one that depletes the world’s water, faster?