Food Systems, Health, and the Environment
BY ZEN L HONEYCUTT
Founding Executive Director of
Moms Across America
America is in a health crisis. Whether you believe the numbers reported about the rates of cases and deaths of COVID or not, we can all agree that 2,400 people dying a day of heart disease and 1,660 people dying each day of cancer, long before COVID, is a health crisis. More than half of our children have chronic illnesses. One out of five adults, over 51.5 million people, have a mental illness.
The American Liver Foundation has reported that 100 million people in America (1 out of 8) have non-alcoholic liver disease. The number of children that have liver disease has doubled over the past 20 years.
During the past 20 years, when GMO agriculture was introduced, emergency room visits for allergic reactions to food have increased 400%. The connection between food-related emergencies, the rise in health issues, and the food supply is not a coincidence.
Thousands of studies, books, and papers have been conducted during this time, connecting the toxins in our food and the toxins in our environment primarily due to GMO chemical agriculture, introduced 20 years ago, to this rise in our health issues.
The growing 20-year health crisis and severity of COVID symptoms in America, as compared to other countries such as Japan, is no mystery to this author.
America grows the most GMOs globally, utilizing the most agrochemicals, has some of the most relaxed regulations, and has the worst health of all of the industrialized nations. Clearly, our main food system is a major contributing factor to our health crisis.
So what is going on with our food? How is it being grown, and how can we navigate it to be healthier? The following is a breakdown of the different ways our food is grown in America, coming from not a farmer, but a mom who has had far too many life-threatening emergency room visits with her son.
I am a researcher, (with many farmer and science advisors) who has become a nationwide and international speaker on the subject of our American food systems simply because I want my children, and all children, to be safe and healthy.