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 lac people were diagnosed with diabetes and 2.6 lac died.
In 2010 India was spending $32 Billion/ Rs 1,920 Crores on diabetes care.
However, in 2012 180 lac people were diagnosed and 7 lac died.
Cancer has seen 30% increase in the last 5 years with 180 million people affected in India alone. At Rs10 lac treatment per cancer patient this multiplies to $300 billion which is Rs18 lac crores.
Presently, 30 million couples / 300 lac suffer from infertility.
Overall of 30% of the population are infertile among women its 70% infertility.
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 female hormone, oestrogen, and oppose action of the male hormone causing infertility.
Studies show that 51% of all food commodities are contaminated by pesticides.
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 all life on Earth as well as our health.
Eat Fresh, Eat Local
Long distant transport changes the very nature of food by breeding out taste and nutrition from our crops to increase shelf life.
Food transported long distance requires lots of chemical treatment, refrigeration and packaging which contributes to pollution and disease.
Our garbage mountains are growing and Green House 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 you are relating directly to our farmers and helping them shift to an agriculture that allows them to grow biodiverse, safe, healthy food that you have access to. The Anna Swaraj Circles in your FOODSHED can vary according to the size of the city - 100 km Anna Swaraj circles, for small cities, 250km radius for large cities.
Eating local can also be 0km with your own Garden of Hope/Nutrition, in your backyard, terrace or balcony of your home, school or institution.
Rebuilding the broken food system, its ecological cycles and the broken 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 chip, a potato farmer in West Bengal gets only 50 paise to 1 Rs for 1 Kg of potato; which is only 0.02 percent of what you paid for the processed food packet.
While you pay Rs 55 for white sugar, your sugar cane farmers have received no payments for the last three years and are being driven to suicides, joining the 300,000 farmers suicides since 1995 according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
While you pay Rs 50 for 1 kg of branded atta, your farmer only gets Rs 14, of this he has spent a large share on buying chemicals and earns only Rs 1645 per month per acre. This amounts to a mere Rs 51.15 per day.
The daily legal wage for a skilled worker is Rs 423. Even an unskilled worker’s minimum wage is Rs348 per day
Therefore the farmer earns only 1/10th 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 soil conserver, a seed breeder, manager of water, weeds and pests. Industry produces the chemicals that are destroying the planet and our health. Only small farmers can 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 spent reaches your Annadatta you can help end farmer’s suicides.
You can rejuvenate your health while rejuvenating the soil and agricultural economy. With a direct link to your famer 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
Food Smart Citizens Form
