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21st December, 2001 Winter Solstice and Christmas. Here in Ireland we have a very famous and dramatic temple to the marking and celebration of the winter solstice. In the 5,300 year old tumulus of Newgrange in Co. Meath, the first rays of the solstice sun shine through a long narrow aperture in the cairn illuminating the inner chamber and its great, carved ceremonial bowl. Throughout the world there are many other examples of ways in which peoples expressed their hope for an end to winter and the birth of a new year. In Machu Pichu, in 1986, I saw the pillar described as the 'hitching post of the sun' to which the celestial body was apparently tethered by an 8km long gold chain at the solstice (Peru, being south of the equator, the winter solstice is the 22nd June).The power of the Inca and other priesthoods was largely founded on the prediction of the exact year's end and their pretended control of it. A gory pre-classical Greek celebration of mid-winter, was called the Festival of the Wild Women. A man was decorated to represent Dionysos, the god of the harvest. He was then torn to pieces by the women! We men won't be too eager to revive that one! Christmas almost didn't happen. The Emperor Aurelius, in the 3rd century consolidated the plethora of different mid-winter celebrations into one big Roman one, Sol Invictus, the Invincible Sun. The 25th December was chosen as it was the first day that the sun showed unmistakable signs of elevating again after the seemingly static week of standing still at its lowest point on the southern horizon. It became the most important festival in the Roman calendar. Mithraism and Christianity were fiercely contending to be the dominant religion of the empire at the time. Aurelius actually appointed Mithraism as the official religion but by the 4th century the Emperor Constantine, for reasons of state security and under pressure from his mother(!) had granted Christianity that distinction. By that time too the Christians had displaced the pagan Sol Invictus feastday with that of the birthday of Christ - although a date in autumn would have been more biblically accurate. Christmas wasn't however an immediate success. It was adopted surprisingly early in Ireland, in the 5th C, but it wasn't common in England until the 8th C and didn't become popular in the Slavonic countries until the10th C. Described as 'heathenism' by the Puritans it was banned by the English Parliament in1647 and even to this day is not universally accepted by all Christian sects, notably the Jehovah Witnesses. Legalising Food. I would predict that most of the food we eat today will be considered illegal and banned from our plates before we have gone very far into the new millenium. It doesn't take gifted prescience to see that; hardly a month goes by without some new bad news about food and drink jerking our health watchdogs and regulators into belated action. As more and more information on chemicals, hormones, and pesticides in our food becomes available, legally allowable levels are reduced - is it not damningly interesting that they are never, ever, ever, increased! Of course if we only had a smidgeon of wisdom we would apply the same, ultra-sensible 'precautionary principle' that, to a very large extent, we Western European consumers have insisted on in relation to GM food. In a perfect world, where the health of populations was paramount, we would change the system completely from the bottom up. We would start from scratch, totally reforming the production, processing and distribution of food. Our real world however, governed by a matrix of conflicting, economic and social forces, laced with greed and corruption - and idealism and selflessness too of course - complicates the picture immeasurably. It would seem that the best we can do, given our circumstances, is to proceed piecemeal, tinkering here and there with the system. Occasionally, major food scandals cause voters to rebel and demand more action and there are often then substantial steps taken towards reform. Generally, however, it is a fairly pessimistic scene of politicians and administrators, reacting on the one hand from pressures from the public and on the other from food business lobbies, painstakingly slowly leading us towards the detoxification of our food. Perhaps. But that's only if the likes of us and what we propagandise succeeds! There are signs that in Europe we may be getting it right - at last. It has taken a lot of consumer pressure to get there but we now have a commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, Irishman, David Byrne, who mostly seems to be a champion of consumer interests over those of commerce. And Franz Fischler, the Ag Comm seems to be genuinely in favour of sustainable agriculture. They are both involved in a series of round-table talks at present which are breaking new ground in terms of assessing the mood of the electorate in relation to food.The text of Byrne's speeches make interesting reading - they can be seen at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/health_consumer/library/speeches/speech132_en.pdf Out of all this a European legal framework in relation to food is developing. Charting that progress and commenting on the process is Irish barrister, Raymond O'Rourke. In the second edition of his book European Food Law*, he brings together existing food law but also informs us where it came from and where it might be going. In the past, O'Rourke says, food policy concentrated mainly on production and the free movement of goods. There has now been a huge turnaround and 'for the future it (food policy) must adequately take into account consumer protection and public health'. We are also, finally, about to see the establishment of a European Food Safety Authority in the New Year. *See Publications page. Plastic Compost. Some months ago I first mentioned the degradable, plastic carrier-bag and congratulated the Irish supermarket chain, Super Value for their initiative in being the first to use them. The Irish govt is about to introduce a tax of 15 cents on all plastic bags regardless of whether they are recyclable or not. Tom Robinson of Symphony Environmental Ltd, the makers of the bio-degradable bags that Super Value use, is not taking it lying down. He is prepared to take legal action against the Minister for the Environment, Noel Dempsey and is also alerting the European Commission. “I don’t believe the regulations are legally sound. They are supposed to discourage the use of plastic bags, which cause litter, and to encourage the use of bags, which don’t harm the environment,’’ he argued. “The regulations should discriminate in favour of bio-degradable packaging which rots quicker than a leaf in certain conditions,’’ Robinson said. I have seen his lawyer's letter to the Minister and it makes a very good case indeed. I wish Mr Robinson every success with his logical crusade. Cranks Crash. Sad to report the demise of the small restaurant chain, Cranks, that in its time was a pioneer of vegetarian food. In recent years it also sourced almost all of its ingredients organically. Most of its once-fashionable outlets were in the London region. They were taken over by a large catering company in recent years which is now in the process of rationalising its operations. But another door opens. Congratulations to Luscious Organic, the first organic convenience store, which opened on Kensington High Street this week. Ex TV personalities Alison Rose and Tony Guy hope to open a chain of these upmarket outlets. Number two is already coming on stream and due to open next week in Fulham. Read more about them on, www.luscious.co.uk A Pox on MOX. The mixed oxide (MOX) reprocessing plant at Sellafield has been cleared by the British courts to start production. Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the Irish Government are dismayed at the outcome of their legal challenge which has held up the operation of the £500 million plant since1996. Irish protesters outside the plant yesterday carried posters saying: ' Ireland says MOX is Muck'. Among the seventy strong demonstrators was John Gormley, of the Green Party and a member of the Dáil (Irish parliament). Pointing out that the plant could pose a serious risk to Ireland in the event of a terrorist attack, Mr Gormley also said the decision to open the plant showed 'supreme arrogance by the British'. See my item last week, 'Nuclear Meltdown': Round the world Christmas dinner. I've forgotten where I came across this item. Thought it was from Sustain UK - and they do have a campaign on Food Miles - but couldn't find it on their website. From what I remember, it claimed that the ingredients for the average Christmas dinner had travelled 24,000 miles to reach your table (The circumference of the earth is 25,000 miles). Now, that applies to conventionally produced food ingredients. But it is also shocking to contemplate what the mile-tally would be if organic ingredients were used. If you were to calculate the food miles for an all-organic Christmas meal, green beans from Kenya, organic garlic from Argentina, etc it undoubtedly would be considerably greater. As a lot of the further-flung organic produce travels by plane the picture is even worse in terms of energy. We need to do a lot of thinking on this - it was also estimated that if most of the ingredients were bought at farmers' markets the food miles would only be a matter of hundreds. I'll do some research on this over the holiday. Fowl Deeds Again. Can't leave the chukkie question alone, can I? Well, I make no excuses - they did after all inspire me to take some of my first conscious steps towards organics. I'll tell you why some day. In the meantime bite on this nugget; three quarters of a billion broiler chickens are produced in the UK every year. Over 90% are estimated to have leg problems. That's 675 million crippled birds! Look up this webpage and also read the foreword by Prof John Webster. www.sustainweb.org/foodfact/chsumm.htm Next update, I will have an item on the US fowl industry in which, amongst other things, I will try to estimate the amount of chicken manure produced in that country each year. Organic Potato Production. I will do an in-depth report on organic potatoes early next year. We should hopefully know by then what is happening about the use of copper sulphate. For my part I believe that the Burgundy Mixture should continue to be used on potatoes - but in a more controlled fashion - and banned completely on vines or tomatoes. I'll explain later. In the meantime here is a report that should be read: www.potato.org.uk/include.asp?sec=243&con=243. In view of the unbridled optimism that was about last year this report is sobering in some respects about the prospects for the industry. Is there a Santa Claus? At my mother's funeral, sixteen years ago, my son asked me, 'Was there a heaven?' In my attempt at answering, I remember trying to relate it to the mystery of Christmas. According to my son's recollection - and I trust his more than mine - I dealt reasonably well with these eternal questions, without managing to compromise too much my usual cynical, non-religious stance. I'll take his opinion on that but I can be sure that I did not deal with the Santa Claus issue with the same aplomb as, the New York Sun's, lead writer, Francis Pharcellus Church did in 1897. An eight-year-old girl, Virginia O'Hanlon, wrote to the Sun asking: 'Please tell me the truth? Is there a Santa Claus?' The full text of the famous reply by Church is on this website: http://www.historychannel.com/cgi-bin/frameit.cgi?p=http%3A//www.historychannel.com/exhibits/holidays/christmas/virginia.html
14th December, 2001 Light at the end of the tunnel. I am on my travels again. Visiting a church, sited on a spot reputed to be the landing place of Jesus Christ and his uncle many thousands of miles from Palestine, I came across the festival of Christingle. Celebrated at the Winter Solstice in the pre-Gregorian calendar, this ancient feast-day commemorates the story of the young Sicilian girl St Lucia who brought food to the early Christians hiding from the Romans. Despite its Latin origins the story became a largely Scandinavian festival. Lucia, it is said, wore a crown of candles to light her way on her nightly missions of mercy. It was not perhaps surprising therefore that the Romans should discover her. Failing to convert her to their many and true gods they cut her head off. Predictably, she became the patron saint of light and blindness. There are many attractive rituals, e.g. the Christingle orange and the Lussekatt buns that have survived and are enacted not only in the Nordic countries but in many parts of the world today. Like so much of the other Christmas celebrations, Christingle too had its roots in an age-old pagan custom: candles in windows and over doorways were there to remind the dark demons of winter to skedaddle as the sun was on its way back. Where am I ? This holy place, remembered as such even to this day in its place name, is also, very likely, the spot from which the Irish patron saint of fishermen began to spread the gospel, or at least the post-Pelagian gospel, to the rest of Europe. One last clue: King Arthur may have convened several great gatherings here. So, where am I? A special and appropriate gift will be given to the first correct reply, received before Solstice Day. Warning: The following item may contain images and thoughts of a disgusting nature (following strong reactions to my item last week, Shit in Meat, I am taking the precaution of issuing warnings about content to protect the sensibilities of my more squeamish visitors). The British Farmers Weekly, Dec 7 -13, page 57, carries an article describing how the plough is being displaced in Ireland by 'Minimum Tillage'.* This has come about through the realisation that despite better technology, management, and crop variety improvements, yields are down. This is because 'the organic matter in the soil is dropping - 'organic matter is black gold', Irish crop consultant, John Geraghty tells us. Great. I totally agree. Reduced or no-till cultivation is the answer he proposes. So far - so good, you might say - what's the problem? Where's the disgust in that? The
photograph! Its the photograph that's the problem. Dr Patrick O'Reilly, head of
Monsanto Ireland, gap-toothedly grinning into the camera holding up two cans of
worms! The terrible, implied threat is that he is going to open them! Monsanto
opening its own cans' of worms - that would be shocking in itself. But it gets
worse - hold on to your stomach! Phew! I've got it at last - the reason why Monsanto are there at all and the rationale of the illustration: Save the worm - ban the plough - use Monsanto's Round Up to kill all now. From the worms' point of view they are expected to swop furrow-kill by cold plough-share steel for the biological warfare death of glyphosate gurgling down their holes. Monsanto's PR gymnastics are getting ever more incomprehensible as they try to worm themselves into our good graces, attempting to convince us that they are really friends of the environment. Perhaps it's desperation! The continuously beleaguered company is to be sold off by its parent company, Pharmacia, early next year having been in the fold (rescued!) for less than three years. *No-ploughng, low-tilling and no weedkilling cultivation has been well tried and proved. See, for example, report from Associated Press on www.ebfarm.com/news-world/low-till.html and the convincing, LISA - Low Impact Sustainable Agriculture - case studies at: www.gks.com/library/part1.html and look up the many sites for Newman Turner. On the FW Contents page, under a scaled-down version of the dreadful photograph, is the caption, 'Opening an Irish can of worms...Conservation tillage will be forced on Irish growers whatever their views, claims this arable specialist(Dr O'Reilly)'. Breast implants. Chicken producers are screaming 'Foul play' at me because of the amount of space I give to anti-chicken stories. I'm afraid its unavoidable - there's simply a lot of bad chicken stories about. The latest, involves the saturation - in some cases adding over 80% to weight - of imported chicken breasts with water, salts, flavours, hydrolysed protein etc. Most of the adulteration was in chicken breasts originating in Brazil and Thailand but then processed in Holland and imported into the UK. www.foodstandards.gov.uk Christmas is coming, the chickens are getting fat, please put millions in the broiler-breeders' hat. And now, for something completely different, another chicken story! A dream chicken - for broiler producers that is - that will grow to 6.5 lb (3kg) in six weeks! This has been likened by a research scientist to a six year-old child weighing 24 stone(150kg). Animal rights' groups are disturbed at the implictions which may result in extra tens of millions of chickens, in the UK alone, suffering lameness and death. See www.independent.co.uk, December 10th, article by Michael McCarthy, Env. Editor. The Skeptical Environmentalist, the controversial book by Bjorn Lomberg which trashes current concerns about the environment is weighed up and found very wanting in an article, How a Pseudo-Scientist duped Big Media, Big Time. www.tompaine.com/features/2001/12/11/1.htm . Relayed by www.ngin.org.uk 13th Dec. Our own Big Media, in the shape of Pat Kenny, was taken in by the Bjorn Babble some months ago. The scourge of BSE hits Austria. Heard this on the morning news and have no further details yet. Sweden is now the only country in the EU not yet to have a case of BSE. War on Terrorism will now also include Eco-Terrorists. We're all for the bin Laden treatment now as the newly rampant American right-wing decides to harness present public paranoia to deal with civil and commercial disobedience. According to a report published in USA Today, 13th December, animal rights, anti-corporate and anti-biotech supporters are 'domestic terrorists.' Right wing politicians are planning hearings on anti-consumer domestic terror to "strip away the Robin Hood mystique from this terrorism in our country." Prof 'Tony' Trewavas, of recent media infamy, provided early warning of these developments almost two years ago when he urged biotech proponents to contact the likes of far right US congressman Jesse Helms to sound the alert, "that a subversive organisation directed from Europe is attempting to destroy US agriculture and US farming." www.agbioworld.org/listarchive/view.php?id=299] www.prwatch.org/cgi/spin.cgi Foot and Mouth U-Turn by UK. It looks as if Ag Min Beckett is now prepared to consider vaccination as a future option for FMD control. At a two-day conference in Brussels this week she said, 'It is absolutely right that we look afresh at this issue..' after the Dutch Ag Min demanded that mass-slaughter be dumped in favour of vaccination. www.guardian.co.uk December 13th. The UK Farmers Weekly and friends in the meantime, have collected 112,000 signatures for its, 'Say Yes to a Public Inquiry' petition. Our Irish Ag Mins should also be called to answer for their mindless copy-cat FMD policy. See my F&M Disease page below. Nuclear Meltdown. Nuclear industry heads and their friends in govt in the UK are 'going critical' over last week's Court of Appeal decision. On the one hand the court ruled against Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth by allowing Sellafield to open its Mox plant but it also said that before any new nuclear project can go ahead, the constructiion and other capital costs of nuclear stations will have to be taken into account'. The implictions of this for the future of nuclear power in Britain are devastating. Tractors for the Christmas stockings. I will have an item on mini-tractors next week. One 20 horsepower machine is so small it arrives in a self-assembly flat-pack!
7th December, 2001 Questions to Fischler. I contacted Agricultural Commissioner, Franz Fischler's office last week asking for an interview. I've been invited to submit questions by email. If you would like to put a question to Herr Fischler, contact me over the next few days. Commissioner Fischler also has the European fisheries' brief, so, in light of the proposed, drastic, 60% cut in white-fish quotas, there should be a query or two out there, particularly locally, on this issue (Castletownbere, my nearest town, is the second largest white-fish port in Ireland). The Jungle. This is the title of a novel by American socialist writer, Upton Sinclair. Published originally in 1906 it was an exposé of the horrific practices in the American meat industry. Its impact gave rise to the term 'muck-raking' and led to the development of the modern documentary. Despite the protestations of innocence from the meat-packing companies at the time, the novel led to the first ground-breaking Pure Food and Drug Act. Sinclair later received a Pulitzer Prize for another novel on the rise of Hitler and, but for his honesty and political naivety, would have been elected Governor of California in 1934. Search Google for many sites on the author and, perhaps like me, pester your local librarian also for a copy of The Jungle. Danish Organic Feedstuffs Contain GMOs. The Danish Ag Min, Ritt Bjerregaard, an energetic promoter of organics herself, is up in arms over the finding that random sampling of organic feedstuffs in Denmark show that almost 50% had traces of GMOs (just under 15% had amounts in excess of !%). Denmark has a zero-tolerance policy to GM content in organic foodstuffs, unlike others, e.g. Holland, which allows up to 1% . Ms Bjerregaard is urging her European colleagues to do more random sampling for GM contamination and, on the home front, is seeking legislation to name-and-blame offending companies. For full article: www.fas.usda.gov/htp/organics/2001/nov01.htm. Relayed by www.ngin.org.uk . Ms Bjerregaard could refer the whingeing feed companies (they claim that the feedstuffs unavoidably become contaminated in shipping transport), that she is leaning on, to look up two items on www.ngin.org.uk, News Letter, 3/12/'01, 50% of US grain handlers will segregate GM grain and Cost of segregating GM food falling. Shellfish warning. I saw an advertisement this morning by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland saying that 'Shellfish Warning Lifted'. This apparently applied to the banning of the harvesting and sale of 'Bi-Valve Shellfish' in Glengariff, Co. Cork, practically outside my own window! Feeling a mite embarassed at not hearing about this food-scare right in front of my nose here in Bantry Bay, I dived into the FSAI website, www.fsai.ie hoping to bring myself up to date. Couldn't find anything there so am now awaiting a reply from them to my hasty email. Bantry Bay Mussels, who have extensive mussel rafts in Glengariff harbour are the largest producers of shellfish in Ireland with an output of over 5,000 tons per annum. Is there life at 'organiclife'? I did an enthusiastic piece on this new magazine last week followed up by an email congratulating them and asking for info on circulation figures and future plans etc. Didn't hear a peep from them! Their website wasn't available either. I thought this was just temporary - but it's been off all week So, can anyone enlighten me? Actually I got impatient and decided to ring them - at enormous expense! The phone was answered by a young woman from Any Other Business Publishing Ltd. The 'editor hadn't been in all week' so I spoke to the Advertising & Marketing Director, Anthony Rainbow who promised to reply in full right away by email (24 hours later, as I go to press, haven't heard from him) He did however tell me a few things on the phone.Their website doesn't exist yet! It probably won't be up until 'middle of next year' Mr Rainbow said. He also told me that 30,000 copies of the magazine are 'distributed'. Pesticides Examined. Eoin English did a fine article on pesticides in the Irish Examiner two weeks ago. Farming, Chemical Warfare, pages 6 &7. www.examiner.ie. Eoin warns us that, although the Dep Ag's, Pesticide Control Service stresses that the risks to consumers are minimal, the "drop-in the-ocean approach to sampling means that certain pesticide residues are slipping through the net and making their way into the human food chain here." Warning us that the Irish consumer is wide open to risk, Eoin also tells us that consumers have three choices; 1) Accept that certain foods you eat are likely to contain poison. 2) Scrub and scrape your food to within an inch of its life - in the hope that you can remove the residues or 3) You can switch to organic. Opposite English's article was a full-page picture of luscious looking strawberries. It bore the caption; 'So what do you think this fruit would look like without sprays?' What is that about? How does that follow the previous article? See Pesticide Action Network: www.pan-uk.org for incredible resources, research and links. Find out about my favourite herbicide, paraquat, by typing in Gramoxone, its most common brand name, into Search. I'll tell the full story about that chemical in the near future. Rogues Gallery. www.connectotel.com/gmfood/gmspin.html This is a great site to look up the people and organisations that spend so much time and energy promoting GM and rubbishing organics. Click on GM Food, UK and World News. Look up the busy Institute for Economic Affairs (started by an industrial chicken farmer!) which is looking for a 'Think-Tank Director' (I've applied!) and trace the goings-on of the chameleon European Science and Environment Forum. For extra low-down on the latter, go to http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/rightwing.htm but be prepared to spend ages in this fascinating page. Battered Eggs. The small, up-market, Irish supermarket chain, Superquinn, has banned all sales of battery eggs from the beginning of this month. They are to be replaced by 'Barn Eggs' - a term new to me, but presumably the chukkies will have a more 'normal' life running around on a floor instead of being cooped up in cages as they lay for Ireland. I wonder though - how do Barn Eggs differ from Free Range Eggs? The latter aren't all they're cracked up to be if what I hear is correct - indeed 'Free Range', because of a lack of enforceable standards, is often just a scam to hoodwink consumers and charge more for the eggs. See website of, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, www.peta.org/mc/facts/fsveg10.html. This is not to imply of course that Barn Eggs are in the same category but I would like Superquinn to explain what exactly are the production conditions for this new description of theirs. Barn Eggs are to have the premium price of IP£1.00 per half doz. More Funny Fowl.'The choice has been to look at the possibility for industrial food producers to rethink the methods of industrial farming, looking to exit from a market oriented completely with quantity and with little interest in the social and environmental effects (of) its production. This relationship with the industrial producers is born from the conviction that, beyond promoting organics, it is also necessary to push for virtuous changes in terms of quality and food security in this sector'. This rather turgid prose issued from Italian company, Gruppo Sant'Angelo di Gatteo, accompanying the launch of 10 million 'certified' chickens on the Italian retail market this week. The chickens, fed on non-GM meal without hormones or chemicals, are certified by an environmental group - not an organic certification body. I would have no problem with this so long as there was genuine improvement in production methods and no attempt at defrauding consumers, but the whole thing smacks of back-door, commercial opportunism riding on the coat- tails of the standards and reputation established by the organic movement. There is shit in the meat. So says Erich Schlossel in his hard-hitting book, Fast Food Nation (see last week, item Quick, Quick...) Behind the euphemisms of the medical literature - coliform levels, aerobic plate counts etc...this is the simple explanation he offers as to why eating a hamburger can make you seriously ill. Consider this interpretation of mine of his chapter, What's in the Meat. The deadly incurable toxin, E.coli 0157:H7,* breeding mostly in animal faeces can occur in up to 50% of cattle carcasses in summer. Unskilled 'gutters', in large US abattoirs, spill the guts, including manure, of cattle in up to 20% of cases. That means that the infected gut contents of dozens of cattle can be splattered over carcasses every single hour on lines processing thousands of animals per shift. Then, if they are mainly producing ground meat, you can imagine the spread of contamination! It has been estimated that one animal carrying the infection can contaminate 32,000 pounds of minced hamburger meat. *Safe Tables Our Priority (STOP), was started by Nancy Donley after she had lost her six-year-old son to an E.coli 0157:H7 infection which he contracted from eating a tainted hamburger. 'The brutality of his death was horrifying' Donley said. www.stop-usa.org . Irish Organic Food Prices are Scandalous. Talking Slow Food and Organic Food to a Cork business woman last week she admitted that whilst she bought organic, processed baby food for her young daughter, and very occasionally some odd items for herself, she could not afford the 'scandalous prices being charged for most organic produce'. Beating a hasty, guilty retreat I offered her the news about the great value, organic German cheese at nearby Tesco. European Food Law. I will have to carry over the review of Raymond O'Rourke's book to next week.
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