This FDA Salmonella Threat is Full of Manure!

News article this morning about pending FDA regulation that would require farmers who spread manure on their fields to wait nine months-more than a growing season-before harvesting foods planted in manure-fertilized fields in order to ‘protect’ consumers from possible, potential, risk from salmonella organisms because they “don’t know how long it actually lives in the soil”.

Salmonella is like any other organism in that it requires correct living conditions or it dies. Living in the soil is natural, being able to live in the body is not. It requires a combination of factors that are obviously not extremely common, given that even in salmonella “outbreaks caused by” spinach or strawberries only a miniscule number of the tens or hundreds of thousands of people who eat the product actually get sick. Those factors include low levels of stomach acid (usually instigated by antacids) which is exacerbated by chlorinated (and otherwise alkalinized) water, combined with extremely low levels of gut bacteria. The acidity and enzymes of the stomach exist in part to kill harmful pathogens before they get any further into the body, and intestinal flora finish the job. Unfortunately, we have been killing both with our diets. We need a huge variety of live cultures, so eat real yogurt, kimchee, kefir, live vinegar, etc. (Check a previous post for info about the artificially engineered probiotics!) Eat lots of fresh foods, even (especially!) grown organically in manure, since they contain active enzymes that help break the food down for you. An exciting new study released in July showed that even people undergoing radiation and chemotherapy for leukemia and other cancers, who had previously been directed to avoid fresh fruits and vegetables because of the germ risk, did better when they ate them.

This regulation is acknowledged as a ‘war’ between relatively small and larger farmers. Earthbound Farms (interesting article at http://www.thepacker.com/fruit-vegetable-news/Report-Dead-end-for-Earthbound-Farm-sale-227100231.html) is for it; the smaller farmer they interviewed this morning said there has never been a problem in literally millions of pounds of produce they have shipped over the last 40 years and is against it. Current regulations require a wait time of four months, which is in line with traditional farming practices. Here’s the deal: FDA is encouraging the use of a processed, heated, pelletized manure, which costs three to four times as much as fresh. It would be interesting to follow the supply chain; my guess is that many of the huge industrial farmers are also processing manure….

The other problem with that type of product is that it is not just nutrients that soil needs. More and more researchers are discovering the profound significance of live micro-organisms in the soil, just as they have found in our bodies. Fresh manure has them; commercially heat-processed manure doesn’t. They allow the nutrients to be taken up into the plants. Did you know that ground which has been paved at any point remains sterile for 100 YEARS before it will support plant life??? Remember that “sterile” means more than just evil-germ-free-it means life-free. We need a huge variety of life to be healthy, and we need to get it from our food. PLEASE contact the FDA and let them know you think that mankind has not survived for this many thousands of years by doing everything wrong. The manure cycle is fine if we will just allow it to work as it has since the beginning of time!