Archive for March, 2008

Diesel Fuel Causes Brain Changes – in the Wrong Direction

Saturday, March 29th, 2008

The Natural Solutions Foundation, the leading Global Health Freedom organization, is proud to present this information to you. We protect your right to know about – and to use – natural ways to maintain and regain your health, no matter where in the world you live. Among your freedoms is the right to clean, unadulterated food free of genetic manipulation, pesticides, heavy metals or other contaminants and access to herbs, supplements, frequency devices and other means as therapies that may benefit or to protect your well-being without drugs and other dangerous interventions, if you choose.

For more information on our global programs, including the International Decade of Nutrition, and our US based ones, please visit us at www.HealthFreedomUSA.org and www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org and join the free email list for the Health Freedom eAlerts to keep you in the loop, informed and active defending your right to make your own decisions about your health and wellbeing!
Our activities are supported 100% by your tax deductible donations. Please give generously (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=189) to the Natural Solutions Foundation. Thank you for your support.
Feel free to disseminate this information as widely as possible with full attribution.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org

Six authors at a Dutch University have published a paper showing changes in the EEG (brain waves, hence, brain function) of healthy males when exposed to Diesel Exhaust. The article says that 10 healthy young men were exposed to the nano particles typically produced by diesel engines.

The point of this very interesting article, which was published on March 14 is that there are no free lunches on the road or off it. Either we get smart and start using real alternatives to fossle fuel or we will choke ourselves collectively and individually to death.

Years ago, during the 1973 gasoline “crisis” when gas was rationed in New York State and elsewhere in the US, I was interested in purchasing a diesel automobile since diesel was much more available and cheaper than gasoline. I did a lot of research on the impact of the particulates in gasoline and diesel and discovered that diesel was far, far worse when inhaled.

You can imagine my distress, then, when Gen. Bert and I were driving from Adis Ababa in Ethiopia to the second city of Adama about an hour away. Gen. Bert was sitting in the front passenger seat because of his long legs and had the window cracked an inch or so because of the intolerable, sweltering heat. The road was almost invisible because of the black diesel and gasoline exhaust pouring from the tail pipes of every vehicle on the road – and there were a lot of them – despite the fact that it was early afternoon on an otherwise clear day.

When we arrived at the hotel in Adama which has been selected for our meeting with the Ethiopian Codex Contact Point and his staff, Gen. Bert got out of the car and turned around to open the back door for me (yes, he really is that kind of gentleman!). I looked at horror at the greasy black gum which covered his right collar and his right shoulder on his otherwise spotless white business shirt. Imagine what was in our lungs! (As it happens, two weeks later we met someone who wanted to show us their new version of the iontophoresis detox footbaths that we and others use for detoxification purposes. Gen. Bert and I took off our socks and shoes and put our feet in their footbaths and, lo and behold, what came out was what had gone in two weeks before: black, gummy, diesel smelling gunk through the pores of our feet! I can assure you that had never happened before and has not happened since!)
At any rate, the point I am making is that we, as a species, are unwise to the point of madness. There is literally no excuse for not protecting your health and mine, our neighbors down the block and our cousins in Adis Ababa and Katmandu from the “death in the air” that we have allowed to take down so many of us through respiratory and degenerative diseases and now, it would appear, neurodegenerative ones as well.

here is the text of this excellent article. Pollution is, after all, a lot like forced drugging and violates your right to breath clean air and drink clean water.

The Natural Solutions Foundation is working hard with you and for you to tackle the issues that no one can take on alone. It is only by joining together that the truth we speak to power becomes audible. Check out our site at www.HealthFreedomUSA.org. If you are not already on the Health Freedom eAlert distribution list, go to http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=187 and sign up. Your data will NEVER be shared with others for any purpose. If you are already on the list, why not get 10 of the people in your circle of influence to join the distribution list, too. As we grow, we become more powerful.

Natural Solutions Foundation: More than just talk!

Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD

Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.Organics4U.org

Here is the text of this interesting and important article” http://www.particleandfibretoxicology.com/content/5/1/4

Memorandum from Gen. Stubblebine: Hope in Preparedness

Tuesday, March 25th, 2008

PLEASE SHARE THIS IMPORTANT MESSAGE WIDELY

Urgent Memorandum from Gen. Stubblebine
Re:
The Situation in America; Hope through Preparedness

This is a message for you. It is also a message for everyone you know
and care about. Please forward widely. Based on my best estimates of the data available, we are about to enter a dark
time and the best way to prepare for it is with some light.

During my military career, I was entrusted with responsibility, as a Major General, with
overseeing the US Army’s Intelligence Command. I devoted many years in
the military to evaluating information. Shedding light through
accurate analysis of information was my professional specialty in the
US Military. This message today is based on my best estimates of the current
situation in the US. There are many recent developments that concern
us all; the collapse of the dollar, the decline of the market and the takeover of the economy by a private corporation, the Federal Reserve, whose mission may or may not coincide with the best interests of the United States, the
evisceration of the US economy, the endless war without reason or purpose.

One single point never makes a pattern. Numerous points converging
on the same spot, however, make a pattern so strong that it becomes a
highly probable prediction of the future and the events to come.

Very recently (February 14, 2008) the US and Canadian Military organizations signed a pact
allowing Canada to come into the (formerly sovereign) US in case of
civil unrest. This appears to be the beginning of the implementation of the
dreaded North American Union and follows similar steps by the US FDA
and other civilian agencies.

The only item on the military website concerning “civil unrest” is the
Avian Flu “threat”.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense have
stated that there will be a choice given to Americans about whether
they want to be vaccinated “in the first round in which the pandemic
has not gotten away from us. In the second round, when it has gotten
away from us [note language], there will be no choice and those who
refuse vaccination will be quarantined indefinitely.” Please read that
again!

http://www.northcom.mil/News/2008/021408.html

At the same time, the US economy is collapsing so that the dollar has
reached historic and increasingly cataclysmic lows against every
currency in the world while gold, silver and oil are peaking at levels
only dreamed of before by economists imagining an unlikely worst case
scenario. That worst case is now only a stop on the upward climb to price
heights which cannot even be guessed at by those of us here on the ground.

The solution to the collapsing US dollar will be, if all indications
are correct, the substitution of the Amero for the currency of what
was, historically, the United States but will apparently shortly be the North
American Union.

The economic, social and personal damage being set in motion by this
blatant economic manipulation is nearly impossible to imagine.

At the same time, it is easy to imagine that as the dollar collapses
and people on social security and other fixed incomes lose their life
savings and have less and less buying power for their meager dollars,
they will create a striking clamor for the government to “fix” the
problem by taking whatever means are necessary – including dissolving
the US, Canada and Mexico to “solve” their personal crises.

Now would, in my estimation, be a very, very good time NOT to own
dollar-denominated shares or instruments, or, indeed, dollars. Dr. Ron
Paul reported to the House Finance Committee a couple of weeks ago
that the Federal Reserve has increased the currency and demand
deposits in circulation by a huge 40% in the past two years… unheard
of, before the current crisis. Concurrently, the Fed has monetized not
just deficit-supporting treasury bonds and sub-prime mortgage junk
bonds, but now even the costs of buying up the remains of Bear Sterns
by Chase!

Now would be a very good time to buy Euros, gold, silver, platinum or,
best of all, land, all of which will likely increase dramatically in value. I am not a financial adviser: I am a private citizen looking at publicly available information through a lens of information assessment which leads me to these conclusions.

The Natural Solutions Foundation, a Nevada nonprofit corporation, and
our Panama Natural Solutions Foundation, a Panamanian Private Interest
Foundation, has an opportunity to purchase organic farm and homestead
land in a beautiful, temperate area, well above sea level (at Santa
Clara). We are reaching out to all health conscious – and conscious –
people to tell them about this potential and invite their serious
consideration of participation in this sustainable project focused on
survivability.

The Santa Clara project was not designed to offer economic
stabilization and protection of resources but it appears that because
of the current situation that may be a consideration. It is certainly
not tended to be an “investment opportunity.” It is an NGO
demonstration project in need of funding. Part of this demonstration
of natural solutions is creating a private community around a better than organic, sustainable, zero emissions farm which will feed us and may well help feed the surrounding country side.
It will certainly provide health care for us since we will include an Natural Health Center which will treat us, the people who come from a distance for our services and local indigenous and native peoples in the region. You can visit a new website, currently being added to actively, at www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org

You may already know about our Foundation, which you can visit at www.HealthFreedomUSA.org. We have nearly 200,000
supporters and have generated over a million messages to Congress, FDA
and others demanding health freedom… but without economic and
political freedom, there can be little health freedom. Since we have
always believed that actions talk louder than words, we have linked
with others in the Intentional Community movement and are ready to
offer like minded people the chance to create what we call an “ARC” –
an Advanced Refuge Community. You can find us at:
http://www.healthfreedomusa.org or http://www.globalhealthfreedom.org
and find our Santa Clara project at:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/NSF-Panama/ and
http://directory.ic.org/records/?action=view&page=view&record_id=21545

We recently presented a participation option in a NSF-Panama Forum
post in which people who have the assets can provide funds to purchase
land in a highly desirable area of — so that the Santa Clara
Community can be funded with the land value protecting the assets of
the people who choose to make the shift from dollars to land. Any
return from the land would be best put into Euros or another more
stable currency, gold, etc, or reallocated to the Santa Clara project
for additional reward. However, the point is that the disaster in the
market becomes a spur for protecting your assets AND, at the same
time, a spur for getting the Santa Clara Community off the drawing
board and on the table of reality.

There is yet another reason to do that. Cycle back to the manufactured
pandemic or other civil disaster which is clearly being brewed up for
us. Once that civil disaster occurs (whether it is medical or some
other sort of potent disruption), the domino collapse of most of the
order of our society will be rapid and potentially devastating.

Survivability becomes key to everything.

Santa Clara will be a community which can supply its own power, water,
organic+ food, health care and other necessities in a sustainable,
survivable, off the grid system of our own making and careful devising.

It will not be built in a month or even a year. The Santa Clara
community will take time to build, farm and bring to full
sustainability capacity. But it will be available for participants to
be there as soon as it becomes necessary to be somewhere safe. The
Beneficiary Interest Certificate (BIC) offers you not only full
participation in the community, it also confers upon you the right to
build your home in the Santa Clara community, on land held in trust
for you and your family.

How much time do we have before the likely collapse of what we know
and love? That information I do not have. History teaches us that such
collapses can happen very fast.

But I do have the clear pattern before me as I analyze the data: the
collapse of the economy is NOW happening. The collapse of civil
liberties has already happened but has not yet made itself fully evident.

The collapse of the nation’s health may be in the works as well though
a genetically modified, weaponized Avian Flu or some other
laboratory-based horror.

Even without the last, the economic collapse is marching toward us. If
we hold onto what is sequestered as our asset base, we will be, like a
polar bear in a warming Arctic, sitting on an ice floe moving out to
sea while it melts away beneath us.

Even if you decide not to participate in the Santa Clara project,
please heed this advice and put all of the assets now in dollars that
you cannot afford to lose into something else.

Santa Clara is a private participatory community and we welcome your
financial input. If your asset base is smaller than one which allows
you to allocate $50,000 to the project, because asset protection
through conversion into other forms is so important, here is what we
will add to what has already been written:

Offer whatever you would like to the Santa Clara project over a
minimum of $5,000 and be recognized with a partial BIC that can be
increased over time.

Your funds will be secure through the land. If you have a BIC (full or
partial), here is what can follow:

You can make a friendly financial agreement with the Santa Clara
community in order to provide the funds to purchase the land, we will
contract with you to pay you the interest on that loan in a
business-like fashion.

In the event that the community fails, you will have first call on the
land which secures your loan.

If you participate in one or more BICs, there will be an extra BIC as
a thank you for your faith and trust. There will also be a share in
the Health Center, otherwise sold for $25K when funding is sought for
that facility.

But if you cannot donate a full BIC (and remember, all donations to
the Natural Solutions Foundation are tax deductible), we will open the
doors to partial BIC’s with a minimum value of $5000. We cannot double
the BIC value for the partials, but we will give partial interests in
the profitability of the community pro rated for the size of the
initial donation. Please do not view this as a financial investment;
rather, it is participation in a community that, like one of its
precursor communities, Fr Godfrey’s Songhai Community in Benin, is
based on the Songhai triad of “Passion, Possibility and Profitability.” You can take a look at the Songhai Center and principles at www.Youtube.com/naturalsolutions.

Some say that this information is creating an atmosphere of fear. It is not designed to create anything but caution and action at the same time. I do not know how to make it more clear that there is a vast urgency
to making the move now to protect your assets currently in dollars.
And I do not know how to make it more opportune to become involved in
a very practical and direct way with the sustainable, survivable, off
the grid community which is Santa Clara. Now.

Please contact Ralph Fucetola JD at ralph.fucetola@usa.net to arrange
the bridge loan, BIC contribution or partial BIC contribution at your
very earliest convenience.

Now more than ever, standing still is going backwards.

Yours in health and freedom,

Major General Albert N. Stubblebine III (US Army, Ret.)
President
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.healthfreedomusa.org

PS: I have liquidated my assets for the reasons addressed above. I am
sure you can imagine where they are going. ANS

March 20,2008 (rev 03/21/08)

You know we need your donations: http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=189

FDA Nominated for NSF Hall of Shame – Again!

Saturday, March 22nd, 2008

The Natural Solutions Foundation, the leading Global Health Freedom organization, is proud to present this information to you. We protect your right to know about – and to use – natural ways to maintain and regain your health, no matter where in the world you live. Among your freedoms is the right to clean, unadulterated food free of genetic manipulation, pesticides, heavy metals or other contaminants and access to herbs, supplements, frequency devices and other means as therapies that may benefit or to protect your well-being without drugs and other dangerous interventions, if you choose.

For more information on our global programs, including the International Decade of Nutrition, and our US based ones, please visit us at www.HealthFreedomUSA.org and www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org and join the free email list for the Health Freedom eAlerts to keep you in the loop, informed and active defending your right to make your own decisions about your health and wellbeing!
Our activities are supported 100% by your tax deductible donations. Please give generously (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=189) to the Natural Solutions Foundation. Thank you for your support.
Feel free to disseminate this information as widely as possible with full attribution.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
Environmental Working Group (EWG)
EWG Public Affairs, (202) 667-6982

FDA Cites Discredited Industry Science in Justifying High Levels of Contaminants in Infant Formula: Ignores Federally Funded Research Showing Serious Health Risks

WASHINGTON, DC – March 21 – In response to a congressional inquiry, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) admitted that it based its determination that current levels of BPA exposure pose no health risks on two studies sponsored by the American Plastics Council (APC), the trade group that represents BPA manufacturers. One of these studies has been found to be deeply flawed by BPA experts and the other study has not been published nor has its results been made public. FDA chose to ignore data from almost 100 independent, peer-reviewed, and published animal studies that show that this chemical is toxic at very low levels of exposure. Many of these studies were funded by the National Institutes of Health. BPA is chemical component used in a number of different plastic products, including baby bottles and the lining in canned food.

“I’m not sure what’s worse — that FDA ignored almost 100 independent peer-reviewed studies expressing concerns over low-level BPA exposure or that they relied instead on 2 studies financed by the plastics lobby,” said Dr. Anila Jacob. ²This shows again how the industry works to influence regulators to water down the health risks posed by BPA.²

Here is an analysis by EWG Senior Scientists, Dr. Anila Jacob, MD, MPH of the FDA¹s findings:

Statements by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in response to a congressional inquiry reveal that the agency’s assertions that infant’s exposures to the toxic plastics chemical BPA in infant formula and baby bottles pose “no safety concern,” are based on two industry-funded studies, one unpublished and the other found to be deeply flawed by BPA experts. FDA’s calculations accompanying these assertions show that some infants are exposed to BPA at levels very close to those linked in lab studies to brain and reproductive system effects.

FDA’s methodology for assessing BPA health risks was made public in response to a request for information from the powerful House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce that questioned the basis of the Agency’s public assurances about the safety of BPA, a chemical that contaminates the bodies of 93% of all Americans. BPA leaches into food and canned infant formula from the epoxy linings of metal food cans, and leaches into drinks held in polycarbonate plastic containers, like plastic baby bottles. The Agency’s response to the Committee reveals that FDA is relying exclusively on two studies funded by the plastics industry and disregarding nearly 100 studies confirming that BPA is toxic at low doses.

Below we provide EWG’s assessment of the gaping holes in FDA’s methods, from our analysis of their Committee submission. We find that FDA’s flawed analysis and biased consideration of the science puts public health at risk, especially for formula-fed infants and others who are highly exposed to BPA or highly vulnerable to its toxicity.

From FDA response to Committee on Energy and Commerce: “FDA believes that this level of exposure (11 ug/person/day and 7 ug/infant/day) is safe as defined in 21 CFRf170.3 (i). This conclusion is based on our most recently completed reviews of two pivotal multigenerational oral studies performed under applicable regulatory guidelines” (emphasis added).

Assessment: FDA is using flawed and unpublished studies funded by the plastics industry to make decisions that may impact the health of millions of people. Almost 100 peer-reviewed and published animal studies confirm that BPA is toxic at low doses. FDA based their analysis of BPA health risks on just two studies, both of which were funded by the American Plastics Council and one of which has not even been published in a peer-reviewed journal. One of these studies did not find evidence that BPA is toxic at low doses (Tyl et al 2002). BPA experts have widely questioned the validity of these findings, because the study did not include “positive controls.” Without these standard controls, it cannot be known if the study was capable of finding health effects from BPA, or if background contamination or other study design issues would have obscured health effects. The second study FDA has relied on is unpublished, not public, and funded by the plastics industry. Its use in developing critical public health policies for toxic chemicals is unconscionable.

From FDA response to Committee on Energy and Commerce: Estimated worst-case daily intake from the use of PC baby bottles and infant formula is 7 ug/infant/day.

Assessment: If a seven-pound newborn (3.1 kg) is fed with polycarbonate (BPA-leaching) baby bottles and given infant formula contaminated with BPA, they will be exposed to 2.2 ug/kg/day of BPA (micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight per day) based on FDA’s estimated daily intake. This is very close to the dose of 2.5 ug/kg/day, which has been shown in numerous animal studies to be toxic, leaving little or no margin of safety for young infants (EWG 2007).

From FDA response to Committee on Energy and Commerce: “FDA has completed a compact summary of the pharmacokinetic data on BPA in multiple species. FDA has determined that understanding the species differences and the differences in how metabolic systems handle BPA administered via various routes of exposure, such as oral versus subcutaneous, are pivotal to examining the safety of BPA” (emphasis added).

Assessment: FDA is suggesting that studies using non-oral routes of BPA administration have little relevance in human health assessments. However, it is well understood in the scientific community that it is actual serum levels of BPA that are relevant, regardless of the mode of administration. This was recently confirmed by a study published in the Journal Reproductive Toxicology that showed that non-oral routes of BPA administration are completely valid in assessing potential health effects (Taylor 2008). In this study, scientists administered BPA to neonatal mice by both oral and subcutaneous routes and found no significant difference in the plasma levels of unconjugated BPA, leading study authors to conclude “the large numbers of BPA studies that used non-oral administration at very low doses during the neonatal period should not be dismissed by scientists or the regulatory community based on route of administration.”

It should also be noted that there are numerous studies showing toxicity at daily BPA exposures ranging from 0.2 ug/kg body weight/day to 2 ug/kg body weight/day in which BPA is administered by the oral route (EWG 2007). FDA’s faulty decision to exclude studies based on the dosing route has resulted in a deeply skewed assessment of BPA health risks.

From FDA response to Committee on Energy and Commerce: “Intact bottles were held in boiling water for 5 minutes, filled with apple juice or formula, and refrigerated at 4 degrees Celsius for 24 hours. BPA was not detected in the juice or formula at a LOD [Limit of Detection] of 100 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml) (100 ppb).”

Assessment: In this particular BPA migration study, the FDA uses a limit of detection (LOD) that is so high that it would not have detected BPA in any of the infant formula samples that have been tested by FDA and EWG (EWG 2007), and well above levels that would be a health concern. In fact, this LOD is 1000 fold higher than the LOD that FDA has used in other food testing (0.1 ppb).

In summary, FDA is basing important public health decisions on two industry-funded studies, one deeply flawed and one unpublished. FDA is disregarding the growing body of science that confirms the low dose toxicity of BPA in multiple, well conducted, peer-reviewed, and published studies. In addition, their own estimate of daily BPA intake shows that for formula-fed infants, there is little or no margin of safety from the harmful effects of BPA confirmed in lab studies. EWG has recommended that FDA set health standards for BPA that fully recognize the low-dose toxicity of this chemical, that are not biased in favor of industry lobbyists, and that fully protect the health of infants and others who are most vulnerable.

References:

1) Tyl RW, Myers CB, Marr MC, Thomas BF, Keimowitz AR, Brine DR, Veselica MM, Fail PA, Chang TY, Seely JC, Joiner RL, Butala JH, Dimond SS, Cagen SZ, Shiotsuka RN, Stropp GD, Waechter JM. 2002. Three generation reproductive toxicity study of dietary bisphenol A in CD Sprague-Dawley rats. Toxicological Sciences 68(1): 121-46.

2) Taylor JA, Welshons WV, vom Saal FS. 2008. No effect of route of exposure (oral; subcutaneous injection) on plasma bisphenol A throughout 24 h after administration in neonatal female mouse. Reproductive Toxicology 25(2): 169-76.

3) EWG. 2007. Bisphenol A: Toxic plastics chemical in canned food. Environmental Working Group, Washington, DC. Available at: http://www.ewg.org/reports/bisphenola.

EWG is a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, DC that uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment.

Food Crisis Hits Home

Saturday, March 22nd, 2008

The Natural Solutions Foundation, the leading Global Health Freedom organization, is proud to present this information to you. We protect your right to know about – and to use – natural ways to maintain and regain your health, no matter where in the world you live. Among your freedoms is the right to clean, unadulterated food free of genetic manipulation, pesticides, heavy metals or other contaminants and access to herbs, supplements, frequency devices and other means as therapies that may benefit or to protect your well-being without drugs and other dangerous interventions, if you choose.

For more information on our global programs, including the International Decade of Nutrition, as well as our US-based ones, please visit us at www.HealthFreedomUSA.org and www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org and join the free email list for the Health Freedom eAlerts to keep you in the loop, informed and active defending your right to make your own decisions about your health and wellbeing!
Our activities are supported 100% by your tax deductible donations. Please give generously (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=189) to the Natural Solutions Foundation. Thank you for your support.
Feel free to disseminate this information as widely as possible with full attribution.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org

Why is the agriculturally blessed US facing rising food costs which make it more and more difficult for more and more people to buy food? What if prices rise for real food which has not been genetically modified and fake food, which has been genetically modified (like the corn now in the food supply which was created to cause male sterility) is cheaper and more widely available? What would people buy and what would people eat?

The fancy breads impacted here are just the snowy frost on the tip of the iceberg. Food prices are rising all over the world at dizzying rates while food stocks are depleted and many parts of the world are just days away from running out of food. These two curves, one up at a tremendous rate and one down even faster, are a graphic representation of disaster. Maybe once upon a time the US would have been busy providing emergency rations to help the masses who will be impacted first and backing off from its policy of encouraging the planting of increasing amounts of food-production land into biofuel crops. Not now. The policy makers want more inefficient and expensive biofuel and fewer people around to use it, despite the failed mathematics of that equation and the increased energy cost of biofuel.

First the croissants and other luxury items become more expensive that people can afford, then their staples, then… what? Obviously, this economy of scarcity and shortage will not impact everyone equally and at the same time. But look down the socioeconomic ladder and see what is coming up towards you. If you do not like it (and I certainly do not), let’s find ways to change it. Growing as much of your own food organically or doing so in a coop is one way to make the changes. Supporting clean agriculture will bring its price down. Look into local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community-supported_agriculture) and arrange with local farmers to supply you with what you need. Rationale: it is clean, healthy for you and the environment and supports the kind of agriculture, organic or biodynamic, that we need on this planet.

But make a positive change in your food procurement habits and begin making a difference in your own life and in the life of the economy and the planet.

Now would be a good time to start. And now would also be a good time to support the Natural Solutions Foundation with your generous taqx deductible recurring donation. You know you can depend on the Natural Solutions Foundation. Click here (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=189) to let us know that we can depend on you.

Soaring wheat costs means higher costs at bakeries

By Karen Gaudette
3/21/2008

Seattle Times staff reporter

The way wheat prices are hopping up, Puget Sound bakeries from wee Café Besalu to giant Costco might start wishing for Easter baskets of their own this year — stuffed with sacks of flour.

Bakeries of all sizes around the region are raising prices on loaves of bread, hamburger buns, croissants, doughnuts and pastries, some for the second or third time in the past year, trying to keep pace with the rising cost of flour, sugar, eggs, butter and even packaging made from petroleum products.

But for those who make their dough from dough, the hardest increase to swallow has been flour.

Bakers have cringed as the price of the standard 100-pound sack of flour soared from less than $10 at the start of 2007 to anywhere from $25 to upwards of $40 now.

“We’re all shell shocked right now. Anyone who is dealing with that floury stuff is right now finding out basically that the earth has shifted underneath our feet,” said Gillian Allen-White, general manager of Grand Central Baking Company.

“Everyone I know that’s baking is kind of freaking out right now,” said James Miller of Café Besalu in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. “We’ve only raised our prices once in seven years yet everything has just gone up so much more.”

National dilemma

Bakers have taken their concerns all the way to the nation’s capital. Baking trade groups that represent giants like Hostess to supermarket chains to family-owned bakeries lobbied Congress last week to put fields currently lying fallow into wheat production.

Wheat costs so much these days for a sheaf of reasons: Crop failures in Australia and Russia, rising demand among the growing middle class in China and India, and soaring shipping costs along with the price of diesel and gasoline. More wheat farmers here and around the globe are also replacing wheat with corn and other grains that can be processed into biofuels.

Washington farmers have moved about 30,000 additional acres into wheat production, said wheat commission chief executive Tom Mick, but that’s small potatoes compared to the 18.5 million acres devoted to wheat around the state. Wheat prices are at record highs, but so are prices for plenty of other grains they grow, he said.

And it’s not all rainbows for wheat farmers. They may be earning more, but they’re also paying more for everything from fertilizer to diesel.

“They’re paying down their debts, but not going out buying new pickups or Cadillacs or anything like that,” Mick said.

The organization that represents smaller bakeries, Virginia-based Retail Bakers of America, is urging its members to raise prices rather than continue trying to absorb the cost. At this point, they say it’s about survival for bakers who have struggled for years to compete against supermarkets.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just the wheat, but we’re dealing with price increases across the board,” said Lynn Schurman, president-elect of Retail Bakers of America and owner of Cold Spring Bakery in Minnesota. “Eggs are up, dairy’s up, some of the shortenings are up … the combination of the different price increases coming is really scary for bakers. I don’t know that it’s ever happened like this.”

The latest consumer price index report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s economic research service bears this out. The cost of a dozen grade A eggs rose by nearly 30 percent during 2007 and was expected to rise an additional percent this year. Dairy (milk, cheese, butter) prices rose by 7.4 percent and were expected to go up another 2 or 3 percent in 2008. Fats and oils are expected to increase by as much as 7 percent this year.

Spokane wheat farmer Fred Fleming calls these the highest prices he can remember in four generations of farming Eastern Washington. Once, $6 a bushel was a price that grabbed headlines. Now it sells for about $12.50 at the Portland Grain Exchange.

“Usually in a baker’s life one product might go up and one goes down, so there’s a balancing act. Right now every thing’s just going up, so there’s no balance,” Fleming said.

Fleming co founded Shepherd’s Grain, a collective of farmers growing wheat in a more environmentally friendly manner. In keeping with the group’s goal of sustainability, he’s tried to keep prices below the national average (Shepherd’s Grain charges $9.70 a bushel, or about $26 per 100-pound sack of flour, which they mill).

Stretching the dough

All these expenses have prompted some new coping behaviors. Bakers say they’re making fewer varieties of bread, not refilling stocks when they run out and mixing different varieties of flour — everything they can think of to avoid big price increases.

Miller of Café Besalu has taken to pondering the weather before he pops his trademark croissants in the oven.

“The idea for us is if it’s sort of sunny in the morning and then raining by 11:30, everyone just decides oh, the heck with it, let’s go get a coffee. If it’s rainy, people sleep in in the morning,” Miller said. “Even though none of it is an exact science, you just have to be really careful not to over bake.”

Grand Central, which raised prices around the holidays, no longer delivers more bread to supermarkets than it expects to sell and is encouraging customers to place orders in advance to ensure those cookies and cakes they want will be available, Allen-White said. And, she feels badly about not having as much day-old bread to pass along to charities like Northwest Harvest.

Raising prices is risky business. For consumers already paying more for groceries and seeing $4-per-gallon gasoline on the horizon, at what price will they simply scrap the scone and coffee as too much?

“At the grocery store if milk goes up they just raise the price and that’s that,” Miller said. “When people have coffee and a pastry, they have a mental price they’re willing to pay.”

“Your customers are used to paying a certain amount,” said William Leaman, owner of West Seattle’s Bakery Nouveau. Open barely a year, Leaman says he’s relieved he was able to take food costs into account when he set his prices so that he could delay increases so far. “I’m going to try to hold off on that as long as I can, but when it really starts to affect the bottom line I may have to make some adjustments.”

QFC supermarkets have seen the cost of flour boost prices in both packaged goods and in ingredients used in their bakeries, said spokeswoman Kristin Maas. At Costco, house-baked bread, muffins and bagels went up 50 cents Monday to offset all the price increases.

“We’d been riding it out, hoping things would change,” said bakery operations vice president Sue McConnaha.

Aside from flour, she’s watched the soybean oil her bakers use rise from $23.66 to $60.20 for a 35-pound container over the past year.

Seattle’s Essential Baking Co. has reluctantly raised its prices across the board, and sales and marketing director Anna Li is dreading talk of wheat going even higher. Essential only uses flour from wheat grown organically, which can be tough to find as wheat buyers snap up whatever they can find to send overseas. Independent bakeries are kicking around the idea of banding together to negotiate better prices, she said.

“This is the staff of life and it’s something that we all in this country kind of take for granted,” Li said. “It makes that whole concept of Marie Antoinette ‘let them eat cake’ have a whole new meaning.”

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/foodwine/2004290947_wheat19.html

Ground Breaking Health Freedom Action: Call in the FTC!

Thursday, March 20th, 2008

Our highly innovative Citizens Petition asks the FTC to use its powers to prevent false and misleading advertising in order to STOP THE VACCINE INDUSTRY FROM SAYING THAT VACCINES ARE SAFE, EFFECTIVE OR PROVEN METHODS OF PREVENTING DISEASE AND PROMOTING HEALTH. Click here (http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?p=507) to read this ground breaking legal approach to stopping the vaccine madness.

A Citizens Petition is a legal assault on the US Government to force it to take the desired action. If the FTC does hold the hearings we ask for and take the desired actions, well and good. If it does not, that means we have “exhausted our administrative remedies” and the case is ripe (as they say) for Federal Court.

Once we have an FTC Docket Number for this Citizens Petition, it’s your turn. “Mouse Warriors” be prepared! Then you can sign it and pour forth a tsunami of grassroots support for changing the terrain on which the battle for vaccination freedom is fought from our bodies to our laws! But that will cost money so when you sign, we will ask you to make a “War Chest” donation (tax deductible, as always, of course) of at least $10.

Our first Citizens Petition on illegal US/Codex “HARMonization” and Dietary Supplements has nearly 200,000 sign-ones! But, to be honest, we made a mistake: since we did not ask for your financial support when you signed it, we do not now have the money to take it to Federal Court. We’ve learned and we are smarter now. With our new Citizens Petition, however, we will build the war chest as we build the number of people who join the Citizens Petition. Can you sign if you do not donate to the War Chest? Sure. Do we need the War Chest filled? You bet! It’s another way to protect and expand health freedom. We think it has great potential to end the vaccine lies since the FTC successfully took on the tobacco industry and other giants in the past in similar situations. Either way, we are building a case for Health Freedom in a novel and powerful way.

We’ll let you know as soon as we’re ready to start that tsunami of netroots support and filling that War Chest. Watch for it.

Thanks for your continuing activism.

Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org