Congratulations! “Health Freedom” Achieves Third Place in Health Care on Change.org – Round 1.
Natural Solutions Foundation
Here Comes Freedom… Round Two
Health Freedom Action eAlert
Important update: Defining Health Freedom on Change.org and Change.gov
http://drrimatruthreports.com/index.php?p=1762
News, Alerts and Other information related to your health freedom.
~ Actions You Can Take Now ~ Products That Support Your Health and Your Freedom
January 3, 2009
Welcome! In This Issue:
* The General’s Communique – Strategy for Change in ’09
* Legal Eagle- Divesting the FDA draft bill
* Health Freedom Action eAlert – Change.org Round 2
* Dr. Rima Recommends
* Kathy’s Corner – Organizing to Divest the FDA
And don’t forget to check the health freedom blog frequently
You’ll find it on our website – www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
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Major Study Shows The Health Benefits of Coffee
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Valley of the Moon (TM) Coffee is “Friendly Food” Certified
That means it is:
* Friendly to the Consumer because it is GMO Free, Pesticide Free, Toxin Free
* Friendly to the Environment because it is shade grown, helping birds and the eco system and no toxic chemicals are used to grow or produce it
* Friendly to the Workers because their health, as well as yours, is safeguarded by the way the coffee is grown, harvested and produced
For each $25 donation you make to the Natural Solutions Foundation, we will gladly send you 1/2 pound of Valley of the Moon(TM) Coffee – the most wonderful coffee you’ve ever tasted – it really is A Little Bit of Heaven in a Cup(TM) . Click here ( http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=1130 ) to get yours now. And thanks!
Time to Reorder!
If you’ve tried Valley of the Moon(TM) Coffee you know it is superb and that it’s time to reorder to make sure you don’t run out. Click here ( http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=1130 ) to reorder and make sure you wake up to Health Freedom(TM) every day!
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Maj. Gen. Albert N. Stubblebine III (USA, Ret)
President, Natural Solutions Foundation
The General’s Communiqué
The new year starts with an important strategic development for Health Freedom. Your last minute efforts on New Years Eve pushed Health Freedom into the top three Health Care issues on Change.org, a web site which apparently may truly function as a direct channel to the President-elect. Responding to a request from Natural Solutions Foundation to make your voice heard, enough people went to the Health Freedom page from our site to vote our issue, Health Freedom, into third place and therefore into the second, and final, round of voting. Top ranked issues on Change.org will be presented to the new President on Inauguration Day. Health Freedom deserves to be Item Number 1 on the Issues List since Natural Solutions Foundation and you know that Health Freedom is Our First Freedom.
More information about this extraordinary development follows below in this Health Freedom Action eAlert. Please read it carefully and be prepared for action. We need you to be ready to act, since voting in Round Two of the Change.org’s pole is limited to January 5th through 15th. We’ll ask you to vote and ask you to share the opportunity with every single person on your list. We want Health Freedom to be the Number 1 Freedom issue presented to President Obama, and we want to be the presenters so that we know exactly what is being said… and YOU can make that happen.
One aspect of Health Freedom is controlling and reformatting the FDA. There is no Health Freedom with Industry at the helm of our Food and Health regulatory agencies. “Kathy’s Corner” focuses on how we need to organize to Divest the FDA of its food regulatory authority while Counsel Fucetola’s “Legal Eagle” section tells you about some of our preparatory work for that effort. “Dr. Rima’s Recommendations” are exactly the sort of important health options that the FDA and Big Pharma want to make illegal for each of us. Health Freedom IS the number one issue confronting us. We need to make sure that the new Administration hears that from our collective awareness of that truth. So your Change.org votes can, indeed, set the stage for a new day for Health Freedom.
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Ralph Fucetola, JD
Council and Trustee, Natural Solutions Foundation
Legal Eagle
I’m particularly excited about the potential for change we have in promoting health freedom with the New Administration and Congress this year. They have the opportunity to show that their rhetoric for change has substance: we will give them the format to work with.
It’s certainly going to be a year of legal changes, and we’re ready. I’m currently working on proposed legislation divesting the FDA of its food regulatory authority. This important bill, which we will present to our friends in Congress, will give them the language and information they need to bring our food out of the shadow of Big Pharma, Big Biotechna, Big Chema, Big Biotechna and Big Govt and into the light of healthy food production and regulation. Our goal is to have a bill introduced in the New Congress which will move us forward with the Natural Solutions Foundation’s 2009 Legislative Goal of Divesting the FDA of its Food Regulatory Authority.
Check the Health Freedom Blog at www.HealthFreedomUSA.org – I’ll be posting the draft legislation there shortly.
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Health Freedom Action eAlert
Here Comes Health Freedom: Change.org – Round 2
What a great way to start the New Year! Thanks to all you Mouse Warriors out there, we have wonderful news from Change.org —
“This idea [Health Freedom – Dr. Rima] finished in 3rd Place in the Health Care category and has therefore qualified for the final round. Final round voting will run from January 5th – 15th, and voting totals will be reset at zero for all qualifying ideas to ensure an equal playing field.”
The Top 3 Ideas in Health Care on Change.org Were:
Free Single Payer Health Care #2159
Fully Fund Medicaid Waivers for the Developmentally Disabled #1804
Health Freedom #1694
Here is the Change.org Health Freedom page: http://www.change.org/ideas/view/health_freedom
But something strange happened on the way to this initial victory. We were the only Health Freedom organization to take advantage of the opportunity. On December 30, we asked you, along with all of your friends, to vote for Health Freedom at Change.org so that Health Freedom could be one of the 10 ideas presented on inauguration day to the new President.
You voted and got us into third place in a little over 24 hours. We went from 98th place to 3rd place, enough to get us into the second round. But something strange happened on the way to this initial victory. In the final hours of voting, leading up to midnight, December 31st, suddenly competing “Health Freedom pages” suddenly began showing up in the Health Care category. This flurry of December 31 page entries is unprecedented elsewhere on the Change.org system. For example, in Domestic Poverty, 45 Votes were recorded on Dec 31 @ 06:35AM PST for a single item. Interestingly, that item was the only December 31 entry in its category. Keep reading to find out why that flurry of “Health Freedom” pages is so significant!
Real Health Freedom advocates are activated and motivated: 10,644 people visited the page for which I asked you to vote by using our links. I suspect many of you were confused by the voting procedure – I know that I was and it took me some time to figure it out. Imagine what would have happened if we had all voted for a single idea: Health Freedom is our First Freedom! It would be far and away the winner in all categories.
What’s Right with Health Freedom? You!
What’s Wrong with Health Freedom? Keep Reading
The people who think that the most important thing is to defeat or damage the rest of the health freedom team so they get to be more important [or even worse motivations] are a serious problem to your health freedom. What happened at Change.org during this vote is a perfect example and we need to change it.
You probably know that there are irrational and irrelevant attacks on people in the health freedom movement – including us – by people with a variety of motivations. You also know that Natural Solutions Foundation does not attack anyone, ever. If anyone thinks that these attacks help anyone except the egos of the attackers and the other side, think again.
Here is a perfect example:
Our December 30 call blast asking you to go to www.Change.org and vote for Health Freedom as a major issue for the Obama Administration to consider was done with great seriousness. To get from where Health Freedom was at that point (98th place) to ranking in the first 3, we needed about 1200+ votes.
The Health Freedom page which we asked you to go to so you could vote had our organization listed as well as three others: we did not put up a page with only our organization because the issue is not us, it is Health Freedom for all of us. In other words, it’s about scoring a Health Freedom victory, not taking possession of territory. None the less, other people supposedly in the health freedom movement seem to have tried (but failed!) to stop YOU from claiming YOUR victory.
We garnered a total of 1804 votes in less than 24 hours, putting us in third place and putting us in the second round of voting. As soon as we started gaining traction, an astonishing additional 34 pages were posted with the phrase “Health Freedom” within hours of our eblast asking people to make Health Freedom a national priority. Now, it is possible that some people misunderstood the way the system worked and thought that by posting a Health Freedom page they were adding a vote. I know one of the posts by a friend of mine was surely an accident of that sort. But the “leaders” who posted those pages surely understood the process.
Consider this: there were a total of 140 votes for those “extra” 34 pages. One “leader” of the Health Freedom Movement posted her comments in 4 separate sections, each one of which got 5 votes. Why? Well, the result was that instead of being in second place, we came in third. It is hard not to conclude that the intent of those 34 pages was to drain off votes so that the issue went nowhere in the process.
Happily, you were active and committed enough to vote us into the final round and for that we thank you. But what sort of “leadership” is it to mobilize people for NEGATIVE benefit to the cause in which they claim to believe by such transparent misdirection?
The truth of the matter is that the other side — Big Pharma and its fellow “Bigs”: – Big Finance, Big Agra, Big Govt, etc., are well organized, huge, enormously well funded and very, very cleaver. They can certainly manipulate online efforts to seek to thwart us. But when our ostensible allies do it… For shame!
Can we really afford to behave this way any longer? Is this juvenile competitiveness worthy of us, is it the best we can do and can it win the Health Freedom War? The answer is clear.
Most people do not know or care about the attacks, counter attacks and foolishness of this behavior. They want their health and their freedom. But the so-called “leaders” who lead this way are leading them over a cliff.
OK. That’s over and what’s done is done. What’s next? The second round.
In a couple days we will be mounting a page on www.HealthFreedomUSA.org at which we will coordinate an all out campaign of support to reach first place nationally on Change.org. We hereby invite ALL of the Health Freedom groups to join us. If they do, we know which side they are probably on. If they do not, we know which side they are certainly on.
In other words, this is a Rubicon for Health Freedom. Just as when Caesar pronounced that the Romans crossing the River Rubicon would change Rome’s course forever, so this event created by Change.org, is a Rubicon for us.
Those who are willing to work together, drop their absurd territoriality and bickering, are welcome to join forces with you and with me. We are, after all, the single most powerful voice for health freedom in the world and your response over the New Year’s holiday proved that conclusively.
If others mount a divisive campaign, shame on them. If they mount a cooperative campaign, sunshine on them. If they continue to seek to divert our (and your) attention with irrational and even violence-implying attacks, we will rise above such pettiness and Keep Our Eyes on the Prize: Health Freedom.
For America and for the world, Health Freedom IS a First Freedom!
Change.org is one way we can tell the new administration in no uncertain, and very positive, terms what is needed to insure that our sovereignty over our own bodies is assured and that we are not menaced with “treatments”, toxins or threats to that personal sovereignty which is essential to free men and women.
So join us, from January 5 to January 15, in urging everyone you know to vote for Health Freedom, our First Freedom. And be ready to help everyone you know understand how important the simple click of a mouse can be to their health and health freedom.
Mouse Warriors: are you ready? Starting on January 5, anyone can go to the page Natural Solutions Foundation is about to put up and make sure that the Obama Administration understands that Health Freedom is our First Freedom.
That, and divesting the FDA of its Food Regulatory Authority, should keep us busy – and free – in 2009. What a great opportunity for change!
Ready? Here Comes Health Freedom!
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Dr. Rima Recommends
Adrenal Support For Normal Adrenal Function
Modern life is stressful and insurmountable stress is, quite literally, a killer. Our stress response mechanism is adapted for short bursts of stress followed by longer periods of tranquility. Show me someone whose life is like that and I’ll show you someone who lives in a lead mine or in seclusion in a Himalayan monastery!
We all suffer from the effects of chronic stress and our bodies do not thank us for it. Overwhelming stress may, after long enough, feel normal to us, but is because we have gotten use to having our bodies break down and are no longer paying attention.
Adrenal stress is associated with chronic degenerative diseases (including deadly ones like cancer and crippling ones like arthritis), undesired weight gain, mineral and blood chemistry disregulation, fatigue, immune suppression, premature aging and a host of other negative consequences.
Let me tell you what I use for myself and what I recommend for people suffering from adrenal stress or its more severe cousin, adrenal collapse: Vital Nutrients’ remarkable product called, simply, Adrenal Support – http://drrimatruthreports.com/store/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=230.
The label of this product tells the story since every item in the product helps to restore normal adrenal function. And Vital Nutrients is a company whose products I know to be clean and wholesome. No GMO products or products derived from GMOs are used and purity is a huge issue for them. In short, I trust their products.
Adrenal Support contains:
Adrenal (whole) Bovine 300 mg and Adrenal (cortex) Bovine 150 mg : Adrenal Cortex from Organically Raised, clean cattle has been shown to be effective taken orally (by mouth) and helps to restore normal blood sugar regulation, red blood cell volume and non-protein blood nitrogen, an important physiological marker. http://westonaprice.org/archive/britton.html
Eleuthro Extract (Eleutherococcus senticosus) 28:1 200 mg : Also known as Siberian Ginseng, Eleuthro has been used in traditional medicine to support energy, regulate blood pressure, and increase our ability to tolerate stress of many kinds and assist energy levels in people with chronic fatigue. Econ Med Plant Res. 1985;1:156-215), http://www.vitalnutrients.net/hq_handouts2.asp?VitaminName=Adrenal%20Support
Ashwaganda Extract 5:1 200 mg: Asgawanda, or Indian Ginseng, is a revered rejuvenation herb in Ayurveda and is used to support adrenal function through its sedating effect while it helps to restore normal digestive and nervous system function. It is also strongly anti-inflammatory with consequent anti-arthritic properties as well. http://www.vitalnutrients.net/hq_handouts2.asp?VitaminName=Adrenal%20Support
Cordyceps sinensis Extract 4:1 100 mg: This mushroom extract has a very long history of use for its rejuvenation impact on adrenal function and for its help in restoring normal liver and lung support. http://www.vitalnutrients.net/hq_handouts2.asp?VitaminName=Adrenal%20Support
Pantothenic Acid 100 mg : One of the major stress vitamins, Pantothenic Acid (B 5), is associated with energy production and supports the thyroid, another energy-related gland. It is vital for optimal adrenal activity (including increasing production of cortisone and other adrenal hormones) and supports numerous biochemical processes necessary for healthy adrenal and energy function. http://www.vitalnutrients.net/hq_handouts2.asp?VitaminName=Adrenal%20Support
I have found that Adrenal Support – http://drrimatruthreports.com/store/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=230 – along with some others that we will be talking about, are extremely effective in returning your adrenals to a state of normal function. These statements, while not approved by the FDA, represent my experience on a personal basis, too.
You can imagine the kind of stress that General Stubblebine and I are exposed to through the work we do for health freedom. Constant travel, less than perfect food, long hours of burning the candle at both ends (like right now!) to bring you health freedom information, etc., have certainly taken a toll on our adrenal systems. We cannot afford to get sick so we pay close attention to our bodies. We, like others who think that we “can take it” found out the hard way how important it is to nourish and take care of the needs of your adrenals before you find out the hard way that they have collapsed!
A word of caution, though: for most people, adrenal support should be taken early in the day. For severely adrenal compromised persons, please consult your local advanced health care provider.
Pregnant women should not take this product without consulting a physician.
But pretty much everyone else should and I hope that you will give it a try! I know that I want my adrenals in tip top shape to protect me from the ravages of stress and I bet you do, too.
Oh, don’t forget that your purchase on www.organics4U.org gives you a 40% tax deduction as our “Thank You” gift while you support your health and Health Freedom.
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Kathy Greene
Community Relations and Development Director
Kathy’s Corner
SUMMARY: Organizing to Divest the FDA
Let’s talk briefly about how you can help us organize to take away the FDA’s power to deny us access to wholesome foods and natural remedies.
We will need people who can contact their local Congresspeople. We need conscientious members of Congress to be willing to introduce our Divest the FDA bill. If you have a personal relationship with any member of Congress, especially any ranking Democratic member, please contact me at dr.laibow@gmail.com with “Congress” in the subject line. We need your help.
Please remember to ask everyone you know to join the Action eAlert system at: http://www.healthfreedomusa.or/index.php?page_id=187 .
We need to grow the list in order to be ready to generate the hundreds of thousands, even millions, of messages to Congress that will be needed to change the law.
And, of course, your generous donations are certainly appreciated; we need your support to educate Congress on this important issue: http://drrimatruthreports.com/index.php?page_id=189 .
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A Word From Dr. Rima
Some time ago the Elders of the Hopi Nation (Oraibi, Arizona) issued a warning message to the world. Their words resonate deeply with me today since this Health Freedom Action eAlert issues a call for all of us who love Health Freedom and understand that it is our First Freedom, to come together and bring our message to national and global prominence. Back biting and squabbling will get us nowhere, but the system has offered us an unexpected and important opportunity to amplify our voices while the world’s eyes are on the coming inauguration.
It is deeply meaningful to me, too, because I am now in Panama helping to create a unique, but easily replicated, Valley of the Moon (TM) Eco Demonstration Project – www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org – to help reclaim the production of food around the world so we are looking toward the soil, toward our community, toward ourselves for leadership.
I offer you the wisdom of the Hopi Elders as you embark upon a year of health, peace, prosperity, accomplishment, joy and love.
Hopi Message
“You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour.
And there are things to be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships? Are you in right relation?
Where is your water? Know your garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community. Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
This could be a good time!
There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river
Keep our eyes open and our heads above the water.
See who is in there with you
And celebrate.
At this time in history we are to take nothing personally.
Least of all, ourselves.
For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!
Banish the word “struggle” from your attitude and your vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
May your New Year be everything you wish for yourself and your loved ones,
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
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Click here (http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=1130) to donate to Natural Solutions Foundation and receive a half pound of Shade Grown, Chemical Free Specialty Coffee, “A Little Bit of Heaven in a Cup(C)”
Drinking Shade Grown Coffee is important to your health and to the eco system. As part of the Natural Solutions Foundation’s International Decade of Nutrition, www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org, the ecologically and socially responsible production of Panama’s “Black Gold†is part of taking reclaiming clean, safe food for ourselves and food producers. Our extraordinary Valley of the Moon(TM) Shade Grown Coffee is an certified as a Friendly Food. That means that it is friendly to you, your health, then workers and the environment.
Part of the reason this coffee, available in sharply limited supply, is so exceptional is that it is strictly Shade Grown and chemical free.
You can taste it for yourself by clicking here (http://drrimatruthreports.com/?page_id=1130) and seeing for yourself what A Little Taste of Heaven in a Cup(c) is like.
But part of the Valley of the Moon(TM) magic comes from the fact that the coffee trees are carefully protected from the full intensity of the sun by a forest canopy of carefully tended trees producing the perfect combination of light and shade for the most exceptional coffee flavors.
Your understanding of what Shade Grown means will bring Shade Growing back to the coffee growers of the world. The only way to encourage shade grown coffee farming is to buy the product. Production follows demand, and many farmers are switching back to shade grown methods as consumer awareness increases.
Natural Solutions Foundation’s Valley of the Moon™ Coffee is not only shade grown, but has been the “test bed†for an all exceptional natural, safe and chemical free method of protecting crops and coffee trees from the devastating fungus, “Ojo de Gallo†without chemicals. Conventional fungicides poison workers, waters and consumers. Our novel system protects us all – and the Natural Solutions Foundation will be manufacturing it so that coffee growers across Central America can use it, too.
Because our coffee is friendly to the environment, the workers and your health, it is the first product to be awarded Friendly Food Certification by the Natural Solutions Foundation.
What Difference Does “ Shade Grown†Make?
Conventional, “modern” chemical-using coffee plantations are replacing wildlife habitat at an alarming rate because they require less care, less manpower and allow mass production of coffee.
As a result of the growth of industrial coffee growing, the population of songbirds across North and South America is in significant decline. “Shade grown” coffee, the traditional method of coffee farming, offers a promising alternative.
Benefits
* Taste. As the coffee beans mature more slowly in the shade, natural sugars increase and enhance the flavor of the coffee. Shade grown coffee tastes better!
*Biodiversity Protection Chemicals like 2-4-D (similar to Dixoin) are used on conventional coffee farms. The result is dead soil without bacteria, worms, insects, birds, snakes, frogs or life. And you drink these chemicals when you brew your java.
* Health. Coffee is second only to tobacco in the amount of chemical treatment sprayed on it. In fact, coffee is sprayed with more chemicals than any other product consumed by humans. Workers on conventional coffee plantations are chronically ill and experience serious diseases, infertility, birth defects in their children and other major problems because of the toxic chemicals they spray on the coffee. The cultivation of Shade Grown coffee generally uses organic techniques and is free of chemical use: Valley of the Moonâ„¢ is absolutely free of chemicals. We promise.
* Environment. Shade Grown coffee requires little or no chemical fertilizer, pesticides or herbicides so it promotes a healthy environment. Valley of the Moonâ„¢ Coffee uses no synthetic chemicals of any kind. The shade trees above the coffee plants filter carbon dioxide (a cause of global warming), and aid in soil moisture retention, minimizing erosion.
*Recycling. All coffee remnants from production are used in the continuing enrichment of the soil and habitat protection for the farm. The second skin of the coffee is used as fuel to dry the beans, avoiding cutting down trees to provide that fuel.
* Habitat. Shade Grown coffee provides important bird habitat and supports greater biodiversity. Migrating bird populations have been in rapid decline since the relatively recent introduction of “sun” coffee and the consequent destruction of rainforest for more coffee plantations. Our coffee collaborators, the Hartmann Family, have had more birds identified on their Shade Grown coffee finca than on any other finca in the world: 173 species, according to the Smithsonian Institute!
* Rain forest Preservation. Shade Grown coffee plantations help sustain rain forests. Chemically dependent coffee plantations suffer from soil depletion and increased erosion. Rain forest is stripped to provide fresh growing ground. Shade coffee farms are, for the most part, organic and sustainable. Valley of the Moonâ„¢ Coffee finca is 50% shade grown coffee plantation and 50% untouched mountain rain forest. Without this tree cover, the heavy rains in the Panamanian Highlands will rapidly denude the hills of their soil cover.
* Preserves Soil Vitality. Chemical coffee farming, dependent on synthetic fertilizer, damages the micro organism web of life which makes soil viable and healthy. Shade Grown, chemical free coffee growing reverses the trend towards chemicals and dependence on them induced by the progressive death of the soil. Since the soil in a chemical coffee finca is devitalized, more chemicals must be used to keep it producing, further polluting both the coffee and the environment. Shade coffee farms traditionally use little or no chemical fertilizer. And Valley of the Moonâ„¢ uses none.
History
Before the advent of “modern†coffee varieties, all coffee was Shade Grown. Traditional coffee varieties are naturally intolerant of direct sunlight, prefering a canopy of sun-filtering shade trees to thrive. The trees not only protect the coffee from direct sun, they also mulch the soil with their fallen leaves which helps retain soil moisturel, shelter birds, insects and pollinators and offer habitat protection for a wide variety of organisms and animals. The shade trees enhance the soil, provide all-important nitrogen fixation and offer vitally needed habitat for birds. The birds in turn provide natural insect control with their constant foraging and fertilization with their droppings. This sustainable method of farming typically uses little or no chemical fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides. Valley of the Moon™ never uses any.
In 1972, new hybrid varieties of coffee (non GMO varieties) were developed to increase production of the valuable coffee crop. These new varieties produced significantly more coffee beans which were larger and easier to harvest, and produced best in direct sunlight.
Many growers cut their shade trees and switched to the new varieties. Of the 6 million acres of coffee lands, 60% have been completely stripped of shade trees since 1972. Only the small, low-tech farms, often too poor to afford chemicals, preserved their shade trees. Valley of the Moon™’s shade trees are visually and environmentally breathtaking.
Tragically, the new varieties of “sun” coffee carried an additional cost as well: the new hybrids were dependent on high doses of pesticides and chemical fertilizers because they were neither hardy nor naturally resistant to pests, fungus and disease. Soil erosion, water runoff and soil depletion as a result of chemical use and poor agricultural management induced producers to clear vast tracts of rain forest for new soil to plant. It rapidly became apparent that this new method of growing coffee was unsustainable.
The loss of the shade trees on such a large scale also caused an estimated 20% decline in migratory bird populations in the last ten years, due to habitat loss. The diminished songbird population is apparent as far as 1500 miles away from the coffee growing regions in North America and Europe.
In 1996, the movement to support Shade Grown coffee was sparked by the Smithsonian Institute’s Migratory Bird Center, which gathered environmentalists, farmers and coffee companies to address the problem and promote awareness of shade coffee. Today, sales of organically grown, shade coffee represent about 1%, or $30 million, of the U.S. market for coffee beans.
Cost and Selection
How do I know if my coffee is shade grown?
~ Make sure your coffee is Valley of the Moonâ„¢ Friendly Food Certified Coffee
~ Look for coffee which, like Valley of the Moonâ„¢ Coffee states on its literature, packaging or website, that it is “Shade Grown” coffee and uses no pesticides or herbicides.
~ Country of origin is an indicator. While there are exceptions, coffee produced from southern Mexico, El Salvador, Peru, Panama, Nicaragua and Guatemala are primarily shade grown. Also, coffee from Sumatra, Timor, New Guinea and Ethiopia are mostly shade grown. Coffees from Colombia, Brazil and Costa Rica are more likely to be “sun” coffees, although there are some shade producers from these regions.
Panama, the home of Valley of the Moon(TM) is one of the world’s smallest coffee producers but is recognized world-wide as the home of some of the world’s best coffees because Panamaninan Specialty Coffee Growers set their collective goal as the production of the world’s finest coffee. Valley of the Moon(TM) is proud to be part of the quality tradition of Panama.
Cost
Although Shade Grown coffee may be more expensive than pesticide-grown industrial coffee, there is far less cost to the environment and it is far less costly to your health.
Natural Solutions Foundation want to thank Eartheasy for this information on Shade Grown vs. industrial coffee.
And thank you for supporting health freedom, the International Decade of Nutrition and the Valley of the Moon(TM) Eco Demonstration Community with its farm, farm school, natural medical center, housing, community center and more. Visit us at www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org and visit us in person in the temperate, magnificent Highlands of Chiriqui, Panama.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
www.HealthFreedomUSA.org
www.GlobalHealthFreedom.org
www.NaturalSolutionsFoundation.org
www.Organics4U.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMarketPlace.org
www.NaturalSolutionsMedia.tv