Eat Organic, Eat Safe

We are what we eat. When we eat food full of toxic chemicals, we pay the price with our health.

There is an epidemic of diseases related to our lifestyle and food such as diabetes, cancer, hypertension, infertility and heart attacks.

India has emerged as the epicentre of diabetes.

In 2004, 8.2 lakh people were diagnosed with diabetes and 2.6 lakh died.
In 2010, India was spending $32 billion (Rs 1,920 crores) on diabetes care.
However, in 2012, 180 lakh people were diagnosed and 7 lakh died.

Cancer has seen a 30% increase in the last 5 years, with 180 million people affected in India alone. At Rs 10 lakh treatment per cancer patient, this multiplies to $300 billion (Rs 18 lakh crores).

Presently, 30 million couples (300 lakh) suffer from infertility.
Overall, 30% of the population are infertile; among women it is 70%.

In extensive studies reported in Poisons In Our Food published by Navdanya, elevated levels of PCBs, DDE and DDT have been found in the blood of women suffering from breast cancer.

Many pesticides including DDT are oestrogenic, meaning they mimic the female hormone oestrogen and oppose the action of the male hormone, causing infertility.

Studies show that 51% of all food commodities are contaminated by pesticides.

An increasing number of scientists blame high levels of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) for the exponential rise in diabetes.

Pesticides and GMOs are killing pollinators such as bees and butterflies.

Organic food is free of toxic chemicals, which destroy life on Earth as well as our health.

Eat Fresh, Eat Local

Long-distance transport changes the very nature of food by breeding out taste and nutrition from crops to increase shelf life.

Food transported long distances requires chemical treatment, refrigeration and packaging which contributes to pollution and disease.

Our garbage mountains are growing and greenhouse gases such as CO₂ from “food miles” and methane from garbage dumps are contributing to climate change and destabilizing the planet.

Eating local and creating a sustainable and healthy foodshed for your city means reducing food miles and toxics in the food chain.

Eating local means relating directly to farmers and helping them shift to agriculture that allows them to grow biodiverse, safe and healthy food that you can access.

The Anna Swaraj circles in your foodshed can vary according to the size of the city — 100 km circles for small cities and 250 km radius for large cities.

Eating local can also be 0 km with your own Garden of Hope or nutrition garden in your backyard, terrace or balcony of your home, school or institution.

Rebuilding the broken food system, its ecological cycles and the links between the city and the countryside is creating a Food Smart City — peopled by food smart citizens who know what they are eating and where their food comes from.

Eat Fair, Eat True

Are these smart figures of our daily food choices?

While you spend Rs 10 for a 50 gram packet of PepsiCo’s Lays chips, a potato farmer in West Bengal gets only 50 paise to Rs 1 for 1 kg of potatoes — which is only about 0.02 percent of what you paid for the processed food packet.

While you pay Rs 55 for white sugar, sugarcane farmers have received no payments for years and are being driven to suicides, joining the more than 300,000 farmer suicides since 1995 according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

While you pay Rs 50 for 1 kg of branded atta, the farmer only gets Rs 14, and after input costs earns about Rs 1,645 per month per acre — about Rs 51 per day.

The daily legal wage for a skilled worker is Rs 423, and even an unskilled worker’s minimum wage is Rs 348 per day.

Therefore, the farmer earns only about one-tenth of the minimum legal wage.

This is not fair to our Annadatas.

Farming is one of the most skilled vocations because a farmer is a soil scientist and conserver, a seed breeder and a manager of water, weeds and pests.

Industry produces chemicals that are destroying the planet and our health, while small farmers take care of the soil — and the health of the soil is linked to our health.

Food is where we can practice non-violence and ahimsa in our daily lives.

Through eating fair and ensuring a fair share of what you spend reaches your Annadatta, you can help end farmer suicides.

You can rejuvenate your health while rejuvenating the soil and agricultural economy. With a direct link to your farmer, you pay the true price of food and stop the diversion of profits to middlemen.

Become a Food Smart Citizen. Join the Food Smart City Movement.

Food Smart Cities — Healthy, Green and Fair.