TIME MAGAZINE'S COVER STORY

CHECK OUT THIS WEEK'S TIME MAGAZINE!!!

If my neighbors don't already think I'm nuts, I'm sure they do now. After I grabbed the mail out of the box the other day, I was literally jumping up and down in the street.

FRIENDS, LOOK AT THIS COVER STORY!

The headline: THE REAL COST OF CHEAP FOOD.

The fine print reads:

WARNING: This hamburger may be hazardous to your health. Why the American food system is bad for our bodies, our economy, and our environment--and what some visionaries are trying to do about it.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA FINALLY GETS IT!!!!

I urge you not to miss this amazing, eye-opening cover story. Here's how it starts:

"Somewhere in Iowa, a pig is being raised in a confined pen, packed so tightly with other swine that their curly tails have been chopped of so they won't bite one another. To prevent him from getting sick in such close quarters, he is dosed with antibiotics. The waste produced by the pig and his thousands of pen mates on the factory farm where they live goes into manure lagoons that blanket neighboring communities with air pollution and a stomach-churning stench. He's fed on American corn that was grown with the help of government subsidies and millions of tons of chemical fertilizer. When the pig is slaughtered, at about 5 months of age, he'll become sausage or bacon that will sell cheap, feeding an obesity epidemic currently afflicting more than 2/3 of the population. And when the rains come, the excess fertilizer that coaxed so much corn from the ground will be washed into the Mississippi River and town into the Gulf of Mexico, where it will help kill fish for miles and miles around. That's the state of your bacon--circa 2009."

Also, did you know that $1 can buy 1,200 calories of potato chips, 875 calories of soda, 250 calories of vegetables, or 170 calories of fresh fruit? It's no wonder there's an obesity epidemic!

That's just the start. There's a lot more great information, including a cost-comparison of conventional vs. organic food.

Triumphantly, I read the begnning of this article to my husband, who (uncharacteristically) had no comment. Happily, I don't think he'll give me the hairy eyeball any more when I inform him I'm going to the farmers' market, or proudly explain the local origins of items that appear on his dinner plate!!

I know we can't all be visionairies, but we can do our own small part to change our food system. Buy local and organic whenever you can, and support brands that have a committment to sustainable agricultural practices. PEOPLE, GET OUT THERE AND ROCK YOUR FOOD WORLD!!!!