Real Food

Watch the Exclusive Worldwide Premiere of Origins

/ Ren

Find out who’s hijacking your health…
and how to reclaim it!

Origins (movie)

About the Filmmakers

Pedram Shojai, OMD, is the founder of Well.Org, the editor of BeMore! Magazine, the author of Rise and Shine, and the producer and director of the documentary films “Vitality” and “Origins.” It was when he ran a large medical practice treating patients with the same lifestyle-induced ailments again and again, that Dr. Shojai began his mission — to help people understand the intrinsic connection between their lifestyle, their health and the vitality of our planet. He works to preserve our natural world and wake us all up to our fullest potential.

Mark van Wijk is a filmmaker based in Cape Town, South Africa. He studied Photography at Port Elizabeth Technikon, specialising in travel. After 4 years of travel he then made a natural progression onto film and television.

“The great outdoors gives me energy – the earth and nature inspires me in my work and in my life! Respect for all is my only rule! People need to understand that they are actually a part of nature and my dream is for my work to bridge the divide that civilization and technology have created”

The message in the film – Origins – kept me inspired throughout the entire project. I am so happy and privileged to have been able to make this film with Pedram and I believe it carries a message that all of us need to understand and live towards!

Tamatem Ma’Amrine

/ Ren

Tamatem Ma’Amrine is a Moroccan dish of roasted tomatoes stuffed with albacore, capers, olives and preserved lemon..

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Tamatem Ma’Amrine (click to enlarge)

Adapted from a recipe by Claudia Roden

Carve a lid out of the tomatoes and scoop out the insides as you would a jack-o’-lantern.  Don’t let the walls get too thin, or the tomatoes will split while roasting. Turn the tomatoes upside down and let the water drain.

Meanwhile, flake apart US Pacific troll or line-caught albacore and toss gently in extra virgin olive oil with bits of roasted red pepper, coarsely chopped capers and black olives, thinly slivered preserved lemon and chopped flat-leaf parsley.

Season tuna mixture with cracked coriander, fennel and white sesame seeds and stuff into the tomatoes.

Drizzle with a little more olive oil and season with sea salt and cracked pepper.  Roast in a 375 degree oven until slightly blackened, perhaps 30 minutes.

Serve warm or refrigerate and serve cold; a crisp salad goes well in either case.

This post is part of Food Renegade’s Fight Back Fridays

© Monterey Bay Aquarium

© Monterey Bay Aquarium

Seafood Watch: Tuna, Albacore

GMO OMG Film Released Today

/ Ren

“GMO OMG could be the film that bridges the knowledge gap for hundreds of thousands of Americans and allows us to reach that tipping point..” — Yahoo! Voices

GMO OMG director and concerned father Jeremy Seifert is in search of answers. How do GMOs affect our children, the health of our planet, and our freedom of choice? And perhaps the ultimate question, which Seifert tests himself: is it even possible to reject the food system currently in place, or have we lost something we can’t gain back? These and other questions take Seifert on a journey from his family’s table to Haiti, Paris, Norway, and the lobby of agra-giant Monsanto, from which he is unceremoniously ejected. Along the way we gain insight into a question that is of growing concern to citizens the world over: what’s on your plate?

What Does “Natural” Mean?

/ Ren

 

Not much..

natural-master[1]

Last year, according to Nielsen, foods labeled “natural” generated $43 billion in sales.That’s more than five times the figure for foods carrying an “organic” label ($8.9 billion).

Meat from livestock fed genetically modified corn, for example, can still be labeled “natural,” as can animals raised with regular doses of antibiotics. And the USDA has no regulations at all for labeling natural foods that do not contain meat or eggs.

More than half of those surveyed said that they specifically looked for a “natural” label on their foods.

There’s just one problem: There are no real federal regulations around the word “natural.”

Even with the lack of regulation, plaintiffs can sue companies individually for false advertising—and in recent years, consumers have done just that. In 2013, PepsiCo. agreed to a $9 million class action settlement fund after plaintiffs complained about Naked Juice’s “all natural” labeling that belied ingredients like genetically modified soy.

More..

Why Would School Nutritionists Oppose Healthier Meals?

/ Ren

By Marion Nestle

School Lunch

Understanding why school nutritionists want to scrap the USDA’s nutrition standards takes some effort.

The question: Why is the School Nutrition Association (SNA)—the organization that represents the interests of “lunch ladies”—supporting Republican attempts to derail the nutrition standards?

The SNA has a long and honorable history of fighting for better nutrition for children, and it supported the 2010 Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act—the one that gave USDA the authority to mandate healthier meals.

Jerry Hagstrom, who writes the daily Hagstrom Report, took a stab at explaining why SNA shifted position:

When the school-lunch program started, most schools cooked their own food. As the number of children participating in the school-lunch program grew, the need to provide more food led the schools to buy prepackaged, processed food, which led to the companies making those foods becoming big players within SNA.

Helena Bottemiller Evich of Politico adds to the explanation:

The story behind the school lunch flip-flop is a complicated web of lobbying change-ups, industry influence and partisan posturing inside the Beltway…Interviews with more than a dozen former and current SNA officials reveal a dramatic shift in SNA’s policy platform, and even more so, its approach: choosing to wage war on Capitol Hill — pitting the association against [Michelle] Obama and her team — instead of trying to win more concessions directly from the Department of Agriculture…[This] has sparked a civil war within the nutrition community and the association itself. Nineteen former SNA presidents wrote to appropriators last week urging them to reject calls for a waiver — a break in ranks that was painful but necessary, signers said.

She adds this critical piece of information:

Several former presidents of the organization said they are worried that food companies have influenced the group’s agenda over concerns that the nutrition standards for the $11 billion program will take a big bite out of sales of popular items like pizza and salty snacks…About half of the group’s $10 million operating budget comes from food industry members.

Kevin Concannon, USDA Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, told Jerry Hagstrom that the SNA’s current leadership is making a “serious mistake” is supporting members of Congress who want to block USDA’s standards.  If the SNA lobbies for permanent blockage of the standards, he thinks they will be “playing with fire.”  SNA, he said, is isolated on the issue.   “The stakes are really high for the future of the country,” he said. “It is a battle worth waging.”

Is SNA isolated?  Indeed it is.  Here’s the list of organizations that support the new standards, compiled by the American Public Health Association.