The alarms are sounding and people are starting to listen. . .

With every new deadly outbreak of E-coli, the curtains are being pulled down and exposing industrial food production for the monster that it is.  More and more people are being pushed towards choosing organic food, they can no longer hide from the industrial food realities.  1,733 people have become sick in Germany from a new even more deadly strain of E-coli and 18 have died so far, with nearly 500 people still in danger of dying.  The World Health Organization is attributing this E-coli outbreak to cucumbers, tomatoes or lettuce.  Does this seem absurd to anyone else but me?  Neither cucumbers, tomatoes or lettuce have the cabability of producing e-coli; as previously mentioned in this blog, e-coli comes from the digestive system of animals and the mutant strains are developing because of all the antibiotics and unhealthy diets we feed our livestock.  It will come as no surprise to me if this mutant strain of E-coli is found to have originated in feed lots or chicken houses and the feces from those operations somehow found their way on to the plants that were grown non-organically.

The WHO and German government are currently asking everyone to thoroughly cook all vegetables and other foods as well as peel and wash well all vegetables you plan to eat raw.  That's a good precaution if you plan on buying non-organic but thoroughly cooking vegetables at a heat to kill all germs renders them tasteless and texturely displeasing, not to mention it cooks away a lot of the nutrients in the food.

On the economic side people in the EU have been scared away from buying produce until the source of the outbreak is found, which means farmers are losing millions of dollars a day.  Vladimir Putin has completely banned all EU vegetable imports into Russia until the problem is solved and Germany is begging Russia to again open up its doors to their farmers; Chancellor Merkel is accusing Russia of overreacting to the outbreak.  Can anyone really blame Russia for taking such a strong stance to protect its citizens? 

Another EU blame game is going on between Germany and Spain.  Germany, trying to take the limelight off of its own farmers was blaming Spain for the E-coli, saying that it was their cucumbers that were infected.  It turns out that the cucumbers were infected but not with the current strain of e-coli that was causing the illnesses.  Wonderful, we see that when the government pays attention to its food production and does the testing that should be required we find even more harmful bacteria!  What a great time to be an organic farmer in the EU - while your industrial farmer neighbors are going broke, your profits are rising!

As we continue to see these outbreaks and deaths caused by the industrial food system, I believe that sustainable organic food will become the majority of our food intake and the industrial system will become a thing of the past.  Unfortunately the industrial food system likes to solve its problems by injecting the animals and vegetables with new technology instead of changing the way they produce food - in their minds solving the problem and saving their profits.  The only way this will change is if you, as a consumer, make your vote for organic and sustainable food by purchasing it in the grocery store, from your local farmers market or by growing your own food!