The Positive Voices

E. coli-laden romaine lettuce recently sickened dozens of Americans in five states, as a food-related listeria outbreak killed at least two Texans. These were just the latest in a string of similar incidents. An endless deluge of foodborne illness outbreaks demands the reevaluation of our food system. But Americans need to adopt a broader approach to evaluating the quality of their food, from soil to plate. We must consider the integrity of the overall production process in addition to evaluating the immediate safety of the food that reaches the consumer. While outbreaks and hospitalizations grab headlines, there are unseen other costs to our current production system. Food integrity considers all players involved in the lifecycle of food production: the health and wellness of associated citizens, the environment, and product itself. Safeguarding the process ultimately yields the safe food consumers want to eat. Foodborne illness sickens over 76 million Americans every…

  As an old TV ad used to say: "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature." Monsanto Corp., however, still has not taken Mother's advice. This giant chemical maker became a veritable Frankenstein in the 1990s, genetically engineering new organisms in an effort to fool Mother Nature for fun and profit. But Momma got mad--and now she's kicking Monsanto's butt all across the country. Here's the background: Monsanto marketed a weedkiller labeled "Roundup" to farmers. But the weedkiller also tended to kill the crops. Thus, Monsanto's mad scientists artificially manipulated the genes of corn, cotton and soybean seeds to produce crops that--hocus pocus!--could absorb mega doses of Roundup without croaking. These patented seeds, called "Roundup Ready," helped Monsanto sell oceans of weedkiller. But Mother Nature's weeds are smarter than the Frankensteins in Monsanto's labs, and they've quickly evolved into tenacious superweeds that Roundup can't kill. There are now 10 resistant…