The latest swine flu generating panic around the world may have come from a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) in Mexico. One more good reason to buy meat and dairy from pastured animals on sustainable farms! Filthy CAFOs are disease factories that produce poor quality food at best. At worst, they pollute the environment, breed antibiotic-resistant harmful bacteria and pathogenic viruses, raise animals in an inhumane and very unnatural environment, expose workers and neighbors to disease and pollution, and produce foods that are poor in nutrition and highly polluted.Before you panic over the current swine influenza outbreak, be sure to read Dr Mercola's excellent Critical Alert: The Swine Flu Pandemic - Fact or Fiction? and a different point of view on Swine Flu Sanity. Also, read here for more information about CAFO involvement: Swine Flu. And, read more about how the swine flu crisis lays bare the meat industry's monstrous power and a food system that kills and symptom: swine flu. diagnosis: industrial agriculture?
The Organic Consumers Association has links to many more related articles: Swine and Bird Flu Resource Center
To boost your immune system and minimize your risk of getting flu and colds, be sure that you don't have a vitamin D deficiency. Get plenty of the fat soluble vitamins A, D, and K2 and eat plenty of the foods that Weston Price found to provide optimal health: animal seafoods, organ meats, and dairy. Also, learn more about the Principles of Healthy Diets.And it's not just flu that may be coming from CAFOs, but antibiotic resistant bacteria: Farmacology.
3 comments:
This is so frustrating. It's such a shame that these illnesses are so directly related to money-grubbing agro-industrial farming practices. I'll say it again and again: if you're not paying for real foods, your paying in health care and other ways. Good set of links.
Thanks Jenny. It's frustrating that we will not likely have conclusive proof that CAFO operations are spawning new flu bugs, but the circumstantial evidence is compelling, especially with this new flu bug and perhaps with the last bird flu scare that fizzled.
Unfortunately, some investigators are pointing to mixed use farms with pastured pigs and chickens as the culprit since the animals mingle and supposedly could more easily cross different strains of the flu to form new ones. But these animals are much more healthy, with strong immune systems, compared to CAFO animals. Therefore, I think it is less likely that healthy pastured animals would develop new flu strains. But what a sorry excuse to do away with mixed use farms - probably a ruse that will be pushed with lots of funding by the big CAFO operators.
As you know, the key is in favoring farming practices that promote healthy animals, not just for avoiding disease, but also for better nutrition. We vote with our dollars and hopefully more of us will recognize that it's worth supporting healthy sustainable farming and ranching!
I love your blog Bryan! Very informative! Have you seen the segment 60 minutes did on the swine flu vaccine given to people in 1976? You can go see it here: 60 Minutes Swine Flu video (1976)
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