Volume 5, Number
22
June 8, 2002
The Farmer
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Fast Food to Hell
by Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad
"Is it organic?" Please do not ask me or any other Black farmer that question. Number
one, you probably do not know the meaning of the word. Number two, the reason that most of you left
the farm was because of the work involved with "organics". And number three, you really
don’t care. I was a part of that "you" myself until just a few years ago.
Let me start with number three. I just finished reading a book called "Fast Food
Nation" by Eric Schlosser. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught thirty years ago in "How
to Eat to Live" that there was
little pure food on the market. He also said that soon there would be "no pure food" on
the market. You may not see his divinity as I do, but he was 100% correct on this warning to us
according to Mr. Schlosser’s book.
What really caught my attention was his description of the food additive industry that produces
the flavors and smells that make processed food taste like "real" food in his chapter
called "why the fries taste good". He states that the area around the New Jersey Turnpike
"produces about two-thirds of the flavor additives sold in the United States". One of these companies "comes up
with flavor for popular soft drinks, sport drinks, bottled teas, and wine coolers, for all-natural
juice drinks, organic soy drinks, beers, and malt liquors."
Now what got me was the "all-natural juice drinks" and the "organic soy
drinks". I thought that "natural" meant natural and "organic" meant made without
chemicals. According to Mr. Schlosser, "natural flavors" according to the FDA
"must be derived entirely from natural sources – from herbs, spices, fruits, vegetables, beef,
chicken, yeast, bark, roots, etc." This sound pretty innocuous accept that companies can take
extracts from any of these sources, mix them together to form new compounds to produce a purely
artificial "flavor". For instance, "natural" almond flavor can be derived from
mixing "peach and apricot pits" not using any almonds at all.
Taste and smell is what we use to determine if a substance in edible or not. Taste and smell is
our first defense against being poisoned. Therefore, the "merchants of death" have devised
a "scientific" way to get around this small difficulty by tricking the tongue and mouth
into eating poisons anyway.
Mr. Schlosser writes, "The Food and Drug Administration does not require flavor companies to
disclose the ingredients of their additives, so long as all the chemicals are considered by the
agency to be GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe)." Now wait a minute can’t you produce a
poisonous substance from two or more non-poisonous substances? The answer is yes. For instance when
you mix "peach and apricot pits" you produce traces of "hydrogen cyanide, a deadly
poison". No wonder that people are dying of cancer. They are eating traces of numerous poisons
in every processed food from the grocery store or from the "Fast Food to Death"
restaurants.
If any of you eat one burger from "McDeath", "Murder King", "Heart
Disease", "Wind Dies", "White Casket" or "Kryst Stalls", don’t
ask no Black farmer if his product is "organic". The fast food industry in cahoots with
the FDA and USDA have managed to drive most small farmers out of business. McDonalds is now the
largest buyer of beef in America. She buys her beef from a few beef processing monsters that control
the world’s supply of processed meats.
So ask McDonalds or those other fast food restaurants "what’s in the beef"? Mr.
Schlosser documents the fast food industry’s fight against any scientific testing of their beef
for "E. coli" bacteria that has proven deadly to hundreds of Americans each year. Of
course there are many "body parts" in the ground up beef that you don’t want to know
about, but you should at least know if there is any e-coli. As Mr. Schlosser puts it, "There is
sh_t in the meat." (You supply the "i".)
Mr. Schlosser also points out that the "meat packing system that arose to supply the fast
food chains…has proved to be an extremely efficient system for spreading disease." He further
documents that it is easier to recall an automobile or a defective toy than tainted meat. The
profits of the meat industry are more important than public health issues to this government. Who is
this government working for anyway? Certainly not its former slaves nor the working classes of
so-called white people.
Remember when you bite into one of those juicy "murderers", I mean burgers, that you
are not only killing yourself…oh wait a minute.. I didn’t point out that "obesity" has
now become the number one health threat in America. Obesity has also been directly related to the
rise in fast food consumption. According to Mr. Schlosser, "severely obese American children,
aged six to ten, are now dying from heart attacks caused by their weight." He states, that
"between 1984 and 1993, the number of fast food restaurants in Great Britain roughly doubled –
and so did the obesity rate among adults."
Muhammad Farms along with other Black farmers are trying to jump start an agricultural industry
that was destroyed by big business and the USDA. When we bring our products to market, the first
thing I here is "is it organic"? "Organic" means containing carbon. All living
things contain carbon. If what you mean is, "will it kill us"? Our answer is, "we use
as little chemicals or fertilizer as necessary and never the harsh chemicals. And our products are
not genetically engineered." The "necessary" means, "only to save our crop"
while not harming you. We used to grow things without any chemicals but hard work, and this is what
drove our families off the farms to the cities. "Organic" means "sweat". We
labored without the benefit of machinery and chemicals of our competitors and you didn’t care. So
don’t be a hypocrite now while you are biting into that "sh_t", I mean burger, and
eating that "fast food to hell." Just ask us when we grow the food for you, "Is it
real food?"
Visit us at www.MuhammadFarms.com for more information.
Peace, Doc