Food issues
When entering any grocery store in any city/town or obscure spot on the map, it doesn't take significant degree of observation to realize how blessed we are with the varied and plentiful food supply in this country. The same when you try to decide which of thousands of restaurants available within 20 miles of your location you would like to have breakfast, lunch or dinner. Unfortunately we take it for granted. Our ability to produce, cleanse, regulate, package and distribute food to our fellow citizens is unprecedented in human history. In addition to convenience and variety, public health has improved significantly due to elimination of food and water borne illnesses. On the opposite side of access to varied and plentiful food supplies are decisions on how much food is needed and which are the best foods for your individual health. As a result of poor choices, childhood obesity has grown in this country. In addition, we are facing worldwide population growth and the resulting increase in demand for safe food. The challenge for us to maintain the convenient and healthy access to plentiful and varied food supplies is to do things necessary to make sure the planet can sustain needed levels of production, minimize waste and make personal food choices that are in our best interest. Follow the public discourse below.

Why the march on genetically modified food hurts the hungry

6/4/13
from Fortune Magazine,
6/10/13:

May was March-on-Monsanto month. An array of celebrities, ranging from Danny DeVito to Dave Matthews, called for protests against the St. Louis-based agriculture giant -- not for anything like the killer Vietnam-era herbicide Agent Orange it once produced, but for food technology that is saving millions of lives in poverty-stricken countries.

It's fast becoming fashionable inside America's hard left to loudly condemn genetically modified (GM) crops -- and those evil corporations that produce them. The rebellion that first flourished on European soil -- despite a dearth of evidence showing GM's dangers -- has been imported to U.S. shores by groups like Greenpeace. California's ballot initiative to require labeling failed last November, but similar proposals are cropping up in other states and Congress. Whole Foods has opted to protect its hard-core foodie flank with a five-year plan to label products containing GM ingredients (which don't qualify as "organic").

Activist websites brim with unfounded scare tactics, linking GM foods to "organ damage, insulin and immunity dysfunction and death".

The the world's largest scientific society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says, " GM crops pose no greater risk than the same foods modified by conventional plant breeding techniques". Even the European Union came up with the same conclusion.

U.S.Aid notes that they operate under a "different calculus" from the anti-GM crowd. "We are trying to end hunger and extreme poverty". Its not just "different calculus", it is the right one.

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