Click on the images one pdf on the site. That is stomach churning.

[deltarescue.org];

FOOD POISONING: YOU ARE EATING CALIFORNIA’S DEAD PETS!

By: Leo Grillo

October 23, 2007

All of the dead animals in California are added to the feed of chicken, fish, beef, shrimp, etc., which we humans eat every day. Virtually all of the animals killed in shelters and veterinary clinics, road kill, medical laboratories, feed lots, deceased wildlife, etc., are sent to one company, West Coast Rendering in Vernon, CA, where they are piled up and left to decompose for days before being “rendered” into a saleable product.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2007 01:48AM by life101.

as unfortunate as this is, it is old news. feeding cows other creatures bodies is what led to mad cow disease. disturbing but a good example of reaping what you sow.

Yes disgusting and disturbing! Poor captive herbivores.

Also:

In the US, poultry manure is mixed with livestock feed and fed to farm animals.

Farmers traditionally used poultry manure as a fertilizer, but conventional farming now uses all petroleum-based fertilizers - synthetically manufactured nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium - instead of manure-based fertilizers. Naturally, all that unused manure has to go somewhere. So conventional thought says, "why not feed it to the other animals? Brings down the cost of animal feed too!"

In Australia, the practice of putting poultry manure into livestock feed is considered unsanitary, and it's banned. Apparently though, the FDA thinks it's just fine.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2007 03:54AM by suncloud.

This thread is pushing the bounds of getting off-topic from raw veganism, but I find it hard to resist because of my past and recent experiences.

suncloud Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Farmers traditionally used poultry manure as a
> fertilizer, but conventional farming now uses all
> petroleum-based fertilizers - synthetically
> manufactured nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium -
> instead of manure-based fertilizers.

This sort of broad statement is simply not true. And yes,it's very, very old news. N,P and K are atomic elements and cannot be manufactured, they must be derived from some sort of natural resource. Oil and Natural Gas are a small part of the process, not the major contributing components.

It's not that chemical process fertilizers are so bad in themselves, the plants will use the N,P and K. It's just that the industry boomed post World War II from the munitions (explosives) manufacturing facilities converted to agricultural uses. I grew up near one of these facilities and had family who worked there amid bunkers filled with TNT and guarded by armed soldiers. What the industry, which was profit-based, was ignorant of in the past and now seemingly choses to ignore is that plant life needs so much more to thrive than NP&K.

However, this is changing because agricultural soils that have been farmed with this simple minded approach for over 50 years have become sterile and unproductive. What little that grows there is weak and must be defended with more chemicals in the form of pesticides. The organic fertilizer industry has blossomed in recent years and the focus is now on creating soil that is a living nutrient rich community. Livestock manures have become a valuable commodity that are used in organic fertilizer manufacturing. A new business just opened up where I have my workshop that uses the manure from the local organic dairy producers to create specialty organic fertilizers for the gardening and nursery industry.

I don't personally use animal manure fertilizers, except for some occasional seabird and bat guano. It's not hard to make your own "green" manure, nutrient teas and composts which I'm learning how to use more and more. IMO the livestock and dairy industries are a tremendous waste of energy and natural resources that could feed a lot more people on a plant based diet, but they aren't going to go away overnight and anything they do to help recycle nutrients created by their activities is a positive thing, short of feeding feces and offal to livestock for the sole purpose of making an extra buck.

I agree with you uti that the organic industry is definitely helping to send manures back in a positive direction. As long as the poultry industry exists, better to put the manure to good use by composting it and using it to grow healthy organic food, instead of feeding it to captive animals!

I think perhaps you may have misinterpreted the meaning of my statement and thought I meant to imply that oil and gas were "major contributing components" of the nitrogen/phosphorus/potassium (NPK) content of petroleum-based fertilizers. I didn't mean to imply that at all, and I apologize if I was unclear in my choice of words.

However, I stand by my assertion that the nitrogen/phosphorus/potassium (NPK) content of petroleum-based fertilizers IS synthetically manufactured. It's not the same as the natural NPK found in manures.

Starting with nitrogen (N), the nitrogen in PETROLEUM-BASED fertilizers most often comes from synthetic urea (synthetic urine) that is manufactured using synthetic ammonia and carbon dioxide. Other nitrogen sources for petroleum-based fertilizers are synthetic ammonium nitrate and synthetic ammonium sulfate. Ammonium nitrate is synthetically produced salt of ammonia and nitric acid, used also in explosives. Ammonium sulfate is a synthetic chemical compound containing nitrogen and sulfer. None of these chemical compounds occur NATURALLY in manures or anywhere else; and although they are major ingredients in petroleum-based fertilizers, they are prohibited in ORGANIC crop production specifically because they are SYNTHETIC.

According to Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI): "All uses (of synthetic urea) are prohibited" and "All synthetic ammonia products are prohibited for crop nutrition including:...ammonium nitrate (and) ammonium sulfate... " and fall under the category of "Synthetic and prohibited (substances) under 205.105 (of the National Organic Program [NOP])".

As for phosphorus (P), the phosphorus used by ORGANIC farmers comes from mined, unheated pure rock phosphate. According to ORMI, "A mined mineral must not have undergone any change in its molecular structure through heating or combining with other substances. (It is) Acceptable if the material is not processed or fortified with synthetic chemicals."

The phosporus in petroleum-based fertilizers most often comes from mined rock phosphate that has been treated with sulfuric acid to produce some form of synthetic phosphoric acid. It is therefore considered by OMRI and the NOP to be synthetic and prohibited. Sometimes the phosphoric acid is even further treated with ammonia to produce synthetic ammonium phosphate, also considered a synthetic substance and therefore prohibited.

The preferred ORGANIC potassium (K) is the mined potassium in its natural pretty pink chrystal form. The potassium in petroleum-based fertilizers often comes from potassium chloride, and can either be naturally mined or synthesized. The naturally mined form of potassium chloride is "restricted" for ORGANIC farming due to the possibility of chloride buildup in the soil. The synthesized form is prohibited for ORGANIC.

Other sources of potassium in petroleum-based fertilizers include synthetic potassium nitrate and synthetic potassium sulfate, both prohibited synthetic subtances for ORGANIC farming.

Chemically processed fertilizers ARE bad. The plants will use the NPK - true, but the stuff that's bound up with the NPK in chem fert is bad stuff, and the NPK itself is most often unnaturally high, and absent of the natural materials found along with NPK in nature. If the earth were a body, it would be like getting all it's "nutrition" from intravenous shots of megavitamins mixed with toxic poisons. How healthy would that body be? How healthy would the children (fruits) of that body be?

Uti, were you saying that the same materials used for making explosives in the plant near where you lived were used to make fertilizer after the war? It wouldn't surprise me. It might even be cheaper, easier and safer to use them up for fertilizer rather than store them.

Just conjecture of course, but since many of the materials used in petroleum-based fertilizers are also used in making explosives, it also wouldn't surprise me if there continues to be a link between the "military-industrial complex" and the use of chemical petroleum-based fertilizers by our highly government-subsidized conventional industrialized farms.

Uti, I agree that "agricultural soils that have been farmed with this simple-minded approach for over 50 years have become sterile and unproductive".

So happy to be vegan, and to grow and eat ORGANIC!



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2007 11:53AM by suncloud.

Suncloud, Thanks for the expansion of your information regarding organic fertilizers.

The chemical plant I grew up near was located on a huge parcel of land near Chattanooga, Tennessee owned by the U.S. Army. Of course in the 1950's people were proud that it had contributed to "winning" WWII, but they had no idea what the price was to the health of the region was from the uncontrolled air and water pollution. In the early 1970's my hometown was listed as the most polluted air region in the U.S.

Synthetic fertilizers and explosives are closely related, so the plants continued to operate via corporate contractors and even switched back to explosives for a few years during the Viet Nam War. And always under the watchful eyes of armed soldiers.

I think it's possible to organically grow ones food without adding any livestock industry supplements or animal manures, even wild collected bat and seabird guanos. I guess that I would have to acknowledge that worm castings in my compost come from animals, but that seems to be more of a natural process with benefits to all the living things involved. I'm looking to move in that direction in the coming season, hence my renewed interest in green manures and plant teas.

The bottom line for me is to consume food that, on an energetic level, is as close to the basic source of all energy in our food, which is the Sun. For me, that's one of the basic tenets of Raw; to eat foods that are in a whole natural state unaltered by the inefficiencies of human tinkering. I'm so grateful to have already received so many benefits from this path.

Thank you for your life choices, brother Uti!

That's very interesting first-hand information about the relationship between chem ferts and chem wartime munitions. I had never before known of their connection.

How sad that your community became so polluted. And I bet the people there were trusting and hardworking citizens who shouldn't have had to pay the price for the ignorance of profiteers.

Good for everybody who chooses - whenever possible - not to support such industries!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2007 05:39PM by suncloud.