We want to share with you an important newsletter that will be beneficial to you from The Organic Center - a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 2002.
The Center's mission is to generate credible, peer-reviewed scientific information and communicate the verifiable benefits of organic farming and products to society.
It promotes the conversion of more farmland to organic methods, finds ways to improve public health and works to restore our natural world by promoting greater awareness for organic products.
Here at Plantlife, we support The Organic Center because we believe in doing research and helping you to achieve optimal health and wellness via what nature has to offer.
We're proud to provide you their latest newsletter "The Scoop," with some fascinating information, here is just a few highlights:
- Obesity Trends Cut Across Species - Scientists studied obesity and overweight trends over five decades in 12 species of animals that live in close proximity to humans, including monkeys, rats, cats, and dogs. All species of animals, and both males and females, have been getting more obese.Strangely, the team did not address what I believe is by far the most plausible explanation of this pattern toward obesity across all species sharing the human landscape -- changes in food nutritional quality.
- Nineteen Pesticides Linked to Increase Cancer Risk - The Agricultural Health Study (AHS) is the largest-ever assessment of the health of workers involvedinU.S. agriculture, and has been underway for almost two decades. A review published in Environmental Health Perspectives summarizes the results of 27 studies using AHS data on linkages between pesticide use and exposure and elevated cancer risk.A total of 36 cases were identified in which exposure to a pesticide increased the risk of a specific form of cancer. The basic measure of risk in cancer epidemiology studies is the “odds ratio,” where values over 1.0 represent elevated risk, and values less than 1.0, reduced risk.
- New Estimates Released of Foodborne Illness Rates and Impacts -The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have released new estimates of the frequency of foodborne illness, hospitalization triggered by such illness, and deaths associated with foodborne illness.Overall, CDC projects that 48 million people -- one in six Americans --contracts a foodborne illness annually, with 128,000 cases leading to hospitalization, and 3,000 ending in death. Of these “preventable diseases,” 9.4 million result from 31 known foodborne pathogens and 38 million are from unspecified pathogens.
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Interesting factoids about food, farming and the environment
- $60 billion – global market for organic food and beverages in 2010
- $22.98 – average price of seed corn per acre in 1995, the year before the first GE corn was introduced
- $104.00 – price of Genuity SmartStax corn seed per acre in 2010 (Monsanto and Dow corn varieties containing eight GE traits)