Green Options

The Meatrix is a clever animated short that explains how incredibly cruel, destructive and dangerous factory farming truly is. Even the recent over-hyped outbreak of swine flu has been linked to poorly managed factory farms in Mexico, that are actually owned by US Agribusiness giant Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest industrial pork producer. “Industrial farms are super-incubators for viruses,” said Bob Martin, former executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Animal Farm Production, and a vocal critic of “contained animal feeding operations.”

Gooey melted cheese on pizza, a glass of cold milk with freshly baked cookies, ice cream on a hot summer day… who hasn’t at one time or another enjoyed something made from milk?

Dairy products are part of most American diets on a daily basis, but what is the health and environmental impact of this high demand for milk?

The production of much of the milk in this country is done in large scale-operations, some having thousands of cows.

That’s a lot of manure to be dealt with, this reduces the air quality (especially for people living near the dairy operation), and consistently finds its way into our rivers, streams, and groundwater.

Monsanto announced on August 6 it will sell off its controversial genetically engineered animal drug, recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH). Organic Consumers Association helped organize an email campaign against the drug for the last several years, generating over a quarter of a million emails and petition signatures against the use ofr rBGH. Historically, Monsanto also made Agent Orange, PCBs, and herbicides that produced dioxin as a byproduct. The chemical [...]

Milk is big in our house. We eat ice cream, butter, cheese, and yogurt. I love my morning coffee with just enough half-and-half to turn it a lovely shade of caramel. My daughter drinks milk with lunch and dinner. When you factor in the pizza with mozzarella and the breakfast cereal, hardly a meal goes by that is dairy-free.

Haunting all this milk, filled with calcium, protein, and fat, has been a single question: what is the real story behind recombinant bovine growth hormone?

If you read about food in general, or genetically engineered organisms specifically, it can’t have escaped your notice that there is a battle raging in this country about the use of rBGH in dairy cows. It’s a battle being fought in grocery stores, state legislatures, the corporate offices of Monsanto Corporation and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

More than 70 groups and individuals have asked Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland to kill an emergency rule that would restrict the use of labels saying “rbGH-free” on milk from cows not treated with Monsanto’s synthetic recombinant bovine-growth hormone (rbGH).

In a letter sent to Strickland today, the petitioners warned that, “If the emergency rule remains unchanged, it will negatively impact Ohioans’ ability to make an informed decision about the dairy products they buy. It interferes with farmers and dairies’ rights to free speech, and with consumer right-to-know. In this era of increased concern about what’s in our food and how it is produced, Ohio should be making more information available not less.”