This movie is a powerful commentary on the urgent issues around soil. The loss of topsoil has been called the single greatest threat to life on earth. Please watch a preview of this film if you are concerned about your future.
Sarasota Farms is focused on topsoil reconstruction by restoring living organisms to the dirt. We need dirt and all life forms depend on it. After you see the trailer, please share your thoughts by leaving a blog comment (see link below video):
The distance a food item travels from where it is grown to your dinner table is referred to as “food miles”. Produce whether organic or not, travels on the average of 1500 miles from the farm to your refrigerator.
Nearly 40 percent of the food we consume is imported from foreign countries, which in some cases triples or quadruples the miles traveled to reach you. Approximately 9 percent of the red meat we consume comes from countries as far away as Australia and New Zealand.
Because of the way your food travels, carried in freighter ships, flown in massive cargo planes, and then trucked to its final location to which you drive your car, make your purchases and then drive home, tremendous amounts of fossil fuels are burned.
These fuels release carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, benezene, and a host of other particulate matter and dangerous pollutants into the atmosphere. These compounds are among the prime movers of global warming. The average family of four produces approximately 50 tons of CO2 emissions each year.
Buying local food, especially organic food, eliminates approximately 10 tons of emissions per family per year. By eliminating the energy used in transportation, processing and packaging, buying local is a major step towards fighting global warming.
source: http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/buylocal/index_pf.html
Make buying local food a priority in your life. Take a powerful step today towards eating healthier for you and your family. Save money and do more to protect the environment.
The General Accounting Office of The United States told Congress to drastically overhaul the food safety system in America. New legislation introduced in 2005, in an attempt to improve food safety, is only the latest of a litany of failed attempts over the last 50 years aimed at getting control of the dangerous inefficiency and outright disfunction of the system supplying and processing food for our tables.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, E coli infections have increased by 50 percent since 2004. Infections from eating raw seafood has increased nearly 80 percent. Additionally, more than 75 million Americans get sick as a result of contaminated food each year in the United States, and about 5,000 people die each year from these causes.
When we consider that each year approximately twice as many people die of food poisoning as died in the attack on the WTC, our reaction to the lose of these lives is measurably insignificant compared to our reaction to the events of 911.
Big food companies have been forced by consumer demand to produce higher yields rather than healthiness and nutrient value
An introduction to the American diet starts with sugar and ends with fat. Government statistics show that this country’s typical diet is made up of 40% sugars and 35% fat.
Over the past few decades, fat consumption has increased by 30 percent and sugar consumption by 50 percent. We are a nation of over-fed and undernourished individuals.
The more we research the food situation, the more we realize that our society has created a major dichotomy. We are overeating and we are starving.
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