Chiquita's Frog Is Not Ecological

This is not fresh off the press but it has for some time been widely known within the eco-society that Chiquita's frog is not ecological. Chiquita means "little" but Chiquita Brands International is a big fruit company on the market. Chiquita is known for its bananas, which a lot of Swedes like, making Sweden one of the countries which are marketable for Chiquita Brands International.

Chiquita has launched and been providing Sweden with bananas labeled with a green frog, certified by the Rainforest Alliance. But Chiquita's tactics make consumers believe that they are ecological bananas. The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation points out that Chiquita still use one of the most toxic biocides at their banana plantations. As much as 50 Kg biocides are spread yearly across each cultivation hectare, which is ten times more that what is used at conventional cultivations of potatoes, potatoes are the crops most sprayed with pesticides in Sweden.

Chiquita releases inacurate information; claiming that the certified plantations house as much wildlife and plantlife as in the jungle, which is totally wrong. Even though they are certified, Chiquita's banana plantations are green deserts. Compared to other brands such as Dole and Del Monte, Chiquita have tried to improve their production by working on environmental improvements and better social conditions for their workers.
If you do not like the situation you can make a difference by boycotting the brands that are not ecological, and buy products that are either labeled with fairtrade or if you live in Sweden: KRAV, (which I will write about in forthcoming posts).

Boycott unecological brands - support ecological alternatives for a better environment and for the workers at the plantations worldwide.

Provisions Company Dafgård Recalls Products Lacking Correct Decleration of Contents

According to the Telegram Bureau of the Newspapers (TT) the provisions company Dafgård recalls two dangerous products; their fish au gratin and their shellfish pie. Someone has discovered that these products contain soy protein without having been stated in the decleration of contents. Soy protein can be dangerous for people who are allergic.

Soy protein is not only used in food, no no, according to Wikipedia soy protein is also used for "emulsification and texturizing. Specific applications include adhesives, asphalts, resins, cleaning materials, cosmetics, inks, pleather, paints, paper coatings, pesticides/fungicides, plastics, polyesters and textile fibers". With this in mind I can understand why sensitive people can have reactions from this protein. I wonder exactly in which types of food we can find this protein and what it is used for. Now I do not mean that this protein is all bad news, according to Wikipedia Soy protein may "prevent heart problems and many countries allow health claims for foods that are rich in soy protein". But it was soy allergy that was in consideration and the point with the article was to show that companies are sloppy when it comes to declare what is in their food, they either gamble and try to get their products approved or they just 'miss' what is in their own products. Talk about not having done their homework.

When it comes to Dafgård they do not provide the market with the most nutritious products. Their food is from what I can understand the type of products you heat in the microwave or in the oven. They offer products like "Gorbys", "Billy", ready meals, meatballs, pasta etc. It is not the smallest company, they manufacture 22 different ready meal, from lasagne to fish- and chicken portions. 60 000 of them leave the factory every day, which is a lot of meals. It is hard to understand how the quality is maintained when the production is so high.

Here are some of their nice little quotes.

"Vision - By continual development of products and technology be one of the leading family business in the food trade in Europe"
-Dafgård

Then develop your products by labeling them with correct declerations of content and develop your technology so you know what is in your own products. If you want to be ahead of everyone else then maintain your quality.

"Business concept - We will offer a wide range of delicious food that facilitate and save time in our customers kitchen"
-Dafgård

I do not want to save that much time in my kitchen, primarily I want to cook my own food and eat nutritious food that does not need to be heated in the microwave and lose nutritions from the already-not-so-nutritious product. I know for a fact that these ready dinners are hard to heat properly and I know that you do become full, but you will quite quickly become hungry again during the day. Is that really worth saving some time in the kitchen?

If Dafgård really had a turnover in excess of 180 million euros in 2004 which they claim, then I suggest that they use some of that excess money and spend it by developing more frozen ingredients and ecological food rather than developing their ready meals and their not-so-nutritious "Billy" and "Gorby" products that has to be heated in a microwave.

Severe Draught Causes Problems For Swedish Farmers

There is currently a severe heat wave over the British Isles as well as in Sweden, where the situation for farmers does not look good. Sweden is experiencing a massive draught due to the unusual lack of rainfall during the summer months. According to svt.se, the most affected areas are Gotland, Öland and Skåne, where the pasturage dries up and the feed-harvest is threatened. The worst case scenario is that farmers may have to kill their cattle.

Farmers on Gotland are feeding their cattle with the feed storaged for the forthcoming winter, but the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) gives a somewhat optimistic but uncertain forecast for the forthcoming weekend. As Sweden is covered in yellows and browns the Swedish National Board of Agriculture have decided to let cattle feed of crop from some sort of fallow land controlled by the European Union. The Swedish government have demanded that the European Commission allow Swedish farmers to let their cattle feed of the fallow land.

Now why do we have to ask the European Commission at all in these situations? There is fallow land where farmers can find food for their cattle, but the European Commission have to decide whether or not to let cattle feed of fallow land. All this boils down to that bureaucracy is worth more than the lives of hundred or perhaps thousands of cattle in Sweden. All decisions and demands have to be filtered through a mindless, slow and bureaucratic mess, which reduce lives of cattle to pieces of paper with the 'right' signatures. I would say, let the cattle out to feed on the fallow land, let them roll around on the properties, shit and feed of the land as they please. Give them some water and let them stay up all night and party on the land controlled by the European Union. The elected mob does not know anything about the situation and health of thousands of Swedish cattle, let the farmers decide what is needed in the appropriate situation and cut out the administrative procedure before it is too late.

Areas affected by the draught also include counties such as Uppsala, Östergötland, Jönköping, Kronoberg, Kalmar, Blekinge, Halland, Skåne and Västra Götaland.
The situation for farmers is critical in a lot of areas due to different oncoming processes in the farming. Farmers have to in a very short time havest their crop, prepare the land for sowing, and then sow next year's harvest. The draught might cost farmers milions of Swedish crowns and the quality of their products will not be as good as if it had fallen more rain during the critical summer months. The potato harvest is affected, so is the corn but the sugar beets can handle some draught. Local specialities are also easily affected in the warm weather.

Since most decisions concerning Swedish agriculture have to go through the European Commission or the Swedish National Board of Agriculture, everything does not develop smoothly and there is a lot of paper work in the way of helping the Swedish farmers out in the countryside. I say, the farmers better ignore the European Commission and act before it is too late - lives, local business and their economy is threatened.

The European Commission wants less Acrylamide in eatables.

The European Commission wants less acrylamide in food. Personally, I do not want any acrylamide in my food. According to svt.se, the European Commission believes that the percentage of acrylamide in provisions has to be lowered.

The chemical compound acrylamide is formed when provisions are heated, but scientists have not yet been able to prove any connection between acrylamide intake via food and cancer in the large intestine, rectum, bladder, or kidneys. According to Wikipedia "In 2002-04-24, Swedish Livsmedelsverket (National Food Administration) announced that acrylamide can be found in baked and fried starchy foods, such as potato chips and breads, and concern was raised as it may be a carcinogen. And in 2005, in a cooperation between the Harvard School of Public Health and the Swedish Karolinska Institutet, researchers were seeking a connection between acrylamide and breast cancer, but could not find any in that case either, as revealed in a press release published 2005-03-15."

The European Commission has been meeting in Brussels lately and they have been working on trying to develop a program for Europe. This program will allow every country within the European Union to do research and bring forth guidelines for their consumers, scientists in Sweden have been measuring acrylamide in food since a couple of years back but with this program, scientists will finally be able to provide research data on the amounts of acrylamide which the europeans receive from provisions.

Toxicologists at SNFA warned us about acrylamide in provisions four years ago and I believe that we should think first before we eat large amounts of food (of everything really) but the best thing to do is not letting your children eat a lot of junk food such as potato chips or even white bread. I need to find out if you can avoid the creation of acrylamide when you heat up and make your very own potato chips. If you actually were able to create potato chips without the same amounts of acrylamide then I would want manufacturers and companies that create potato chips to investigate exactly what their products consists of before and after the manufacturing process. I would find it easier to avoid potato chips altogether if I knew that the bag would give me cancer from consuming a few potato chips here and there during my lifetime. Even though the connection between acrylamide and cancer is yet to be 'discovered' I believe that we know to little about our bodies' storage capacity when it comes to collecting chemical substances. The thing that I also dislike is that I believe that we might have more reasearch data on the male body and not the female body.

So, next time you bring your friends over, talk about making your own chips or perhaps have some vegetables as snacks instead.

Sucralose Resembles DDT and PCB

According to Swedish national television, experts warned today the public about the syntehtic sweetener called Sucralose (Splenda is its trade name). Here is the original article in Swedish: SVT.se.

Sucralose apparently resembles hazardous substances such as DDT and PCB and can be found in various products such as sodas and ketchup. It is known as E955 in the European Union and is not only six hundred times as sweet as sucrose but it is twice as sweet as saccharin and four times as sweet as aspartame! Be sure to read all about the use of Sucralose in branded products by following the Sucralose link above.

We do not need all these junk sweeteners. And does it really have to be six hundred times sweeter than sugar? What is the secret? Well, Sucralose does not contain any calories - that is the little miracle this dangerous sweeterner has to offer. According to the article, chemists are stunned that this substance is even used in provisions. The strange thing is that the European Union and the Swedish National Food Administration have approved Sucralose as a sweetener. SNFA apparently writes on their website that "the extensive evaluations on Sucralose could not find any health hazards associated with this sweetener, including increased risk of cancer", then what were the people who did these 'exstensive evaluations' up to? Were they sleeping?

I see a pattern here. What has happened with Sucralose has happened many times before. Food companies come up with new ways of 'developing' their products and then they need to get their 'discoveries' approved by the national food administrations, that is, being approved by them who still have more power than themselves. Even though these substances later on prove to be dangerous, authorities still approve these substances even though they have not been properly tested yet. The authorities have proven to be weak against the commercial threats posed by companies with a lot of money, time and commercial interest on their hands. If this dilemma is ever going to be solved then laws and legislations have to be made by governments and the European Union and the national food administrations need to stop being soft and look beyond these companies and their commercial interests.

Eco and Ethics

Over the past couple of years an interest for the environment, ecology and ethics has gradually begun to affect the very essence of my actions.

Due to certain people close to me, I have started to eat more healthy food, trying to figure out where the food comes from and why I really should ignore certain products even though they look alright. I also try to think about other aspects concerning our surroundings and the environment in general, it is hard to make a change because one can only control oneself, but through raising people's consciousness by making them aware of certain things, I believe that creating awareness in issues on ecology, food, products, the environment etc. is needed in this day of age. Though I find it hard to live as I teach, creating this blog will help me to remember certain guidelines and codes of ethics and alter my actions in accordance with them.

This blog will hopefully cover various news, guidelines, codes of ethics, products etc. concerning ecology, food, health and the environment. Moreover, I do not believe that one can follow everything by the book and alter ones actions in accordance with all new findings and observations - that would not be possible and you would only lie to yourself in today's western society.
Although I mostly see problems and issues concerning our way of life in the western world, I think that we have the economy to ignore hazardous and unethical products on our market. One of the general arguments is that "You can save thousands of Swedish crowns each month if you shop your groceries at this market". Instead of completely think about our own economy I say let us invest thousands of Swedish crowns in food and products that have eco-labels, that perhaps have been produced in the region or locally, that are not hazardous, that have not been produced with child labor or that have not caused any threats to the ecosystem.

Do not let the market and transnational companies steal the term 'eco' and customize it into their own thing, ridding it of any third party guidelines, research, investigation and even laws. Listen here, the world may be gone in a hundred years time - this is serious and that is why I want you to study and learn how the economical machinery works as it takes its toll on the environment and even mankind.

I'm Spectraz and this is "Eco and Ethics".