News of the real
September, 2005
Nutritional Value of Vegetables is Falling
There has been a sixty-percent fall in the level of vitamins and minerals in beans since 1985, a seventy-percent drop in potatoes, while apples now contain eighty-percent fewer vitamins and minerals. In 1900, wheat was ninety-percent protein; it is currently only nine-percent protein. This means you would have to eat ten slices of bread to get the same nutrients you once got from one slice.
The quality of agricultural land has declined at an alarming rate over the past century. The United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization has concluded that artificial fertilizer is contributing to a ‘serious shortage’ of minerals. This chemical mixture of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium may ensure crops grow quickly, but it also diminishes vital nutrients in the soil. Even organic food production, done without artificial fertilizer, cannot guarantee that the soil is rich in minerals. It cannot always replace the missing minerals depleted by earlier applications of synthetic fertilizer.
Ode magazine, Sept 2005
Vitality news: The most basic products and relationships are being degraded, and though we may sense the results it is often hard to know the reasons.
Coca Is Used To Make Coca-Cola
“Coca Cola, the globally recognized soft drink manufacturer, buys 115 tons of coca leaf from Peru and 105 tons from Bolivia per year, with which it produces, without alkaloids, 500 million bottles of soda per day” according to the Peruvian organization DEVIDA. Coca Cola buys coca leaves. We have said so ourselves in past reports, and the Peruvian government says the same thing now. And so now we are sure that the “spark of life” has coca - in at least 500 million bottles a day. And this process helped the company earn 13.3 billion dollars in net profit last year, according to their own financial reports.
In December of 2002, the transnational corporation’s Mexican representative, Adriana Valladares, resolutely claimed that “Coca Cola does not buy coca leaves.” And for her part, Coca Cola spokesperson Karyn Dest, interviewed by the Mexican daily El Universal, “said via telephone from Atlanta that the company does not use cocaine and that it has never been part of the drink’s ingredients…” Well, no, not cocaine, but coca leaves, yes. And, to make sure, I just served myself a glass of soda… but I don’t feel anything. Do you? So, what is The Coca Cola Company hiding? The have “cleaned” the alkaloids from their coca leaves, so why do they lie about buying coca from Peru?
Source: Narco News Bulletin
True news: Large corporations obfuscate the origin of their products and profits.
U.S. Consumers are Complicit in Malnourished Mexicans
“About a quarter of all the fruits and vegetables imported into the U.S., including canned and frozen vegetables, come from Mexico.” But “almost a half of all children in rural Mexico suffer from malnutrition.” Global Dreams, by Barnet and Cavanagh
Complicity news: U.S. prosperity is due to some extent to suffering of those in distant lands.
Gigantic Vegetables Already Breaking Fair Records
A 32-pound table beet, 13-pound white radish and a massive 144-pound watermelon broke Alaska State Fair records on opening day in an unusually early start to the fair’s annual glut of garden-grown whoppers.
Normally, most growers keep produce growing as long as possible to get the best weight before picking for the fair. If records are already breaking, who knows what kind of champions will be delivered by this summer’s intermittent sunny and soggy spells?
Meaning news: Bigger is not necessarily better, and quality is important.
West Coast Forms Clean-Car Corridor
Despite an effort by auto industry lobbyists to kill the move, two Pacific Northwest states-Oregon and Washington-are getting ready to adopt California’s new vehicle emission standards to reduce greenhouse gases.
When that happens, California’s newly implemented emissions standards-the toughest in the country-will be in effect along the entire West Coast form Canada to Mexico, excluding Alaska.
By 2016, all new cars, SUVs and light trucks sold in the West Coast states will have to comply with the tougher standards on emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which are believed ot be a leading cause of global warming. The 2016 date was set to give automakers plenty of time to comply with the new standards.
At least six states in the Northeast are also moving to adopt California’s new tailpipe standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars.
August 22, 2005, AP
Responsibility news: Alaskans are not even confronted with this issue, and seem to be perfectly happy to pollute.
U.S. poverty rate rises to 12.7%
The nation’s poverty rate rose to 12.7% of the population last year, the fourth consecutive annual increase, the Census Bureau said Tuesday.
Overall, there were 37 million people living in poverty, up 1.1 million people from 2003.
The percentage of people without healthy insurance did not change, but the number of people without health insurance grew from 45 million to 45.8 million. At the same time, the number of people with health insurance coverage grew by 2 million last year.
The median household income, meanwhile, stood at $44,389, unchanged from 2003.
The increase in poverty came despite strong economic growth, which helped create 2.2 million jobs last year.
August 30, 2005, AP
Challenging news: We are one. Poverty is connected to prosperity, and it is not OK to ignore this connection.