Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

gardenstart wrote:

This may shed some light on the" illegal seed-saving" issue, which finds its roots in this driving force behind the global regulation of food and medicine:

"The Codex Alimentarius Commission, Latin for 'food code', is an inter-governmental body that sets guidelines and standards to ensure ‘fair trade practices’ and consumer protection in relation to the global trade of food. It was established for this purpose in 1963 so has more than 40 years’ experience controlling food in an ever-more globalized world."

anh-europe.org/campaigns/codex#Individual

Important issues which Codex affects that impact our ability to manage our health naturally:

Genetically modified (GM) food-Driven by GM interests which argue world food requirements cannot be met without global implementation of GM.

-Terminator’ seeds could be approved for international trade-

-GM food animals are on the way

-‘Dumbing-down’ of organic standards to suit interests of large food producers

-Promotion of large-scale, high-input agriculture and international freight

-Approval of various synthetic chemical additives and ‘processing aids’ in organic foods

-No outright ban on use of irradiation post-production

-Labelling allows use of hidden, non-organic ingredients

-Approval as safe around 300 different food additives (mainly synthetic) including aspartame, BHA, BHT, potassium bromate, tartrazine, etc.

-No consideration given to potential risks associated with long-term exposure to mixtures of additives

-Allows significant residues of over 3,275 different pesticides, including those that are suspected carcinogens or endocrine disruptors, e.g. 2,4-D, atrazine, methyl bromide

-Setting very low maximum daily doses for supplements using scientifically flawed risk assessment methods

-Effectively establishing international borderline between foods and drugs for nutrients, forcing therapeutic nutrients into drug category

-Requirement for clinical trials to substantiate health claims; too expensive for small companies. Therefore provides passport system for big corporations and acts as obstacle to freedom of speech for smaller ones

-Setting of unnecessarily low Nutrient Reference Values which seriously understate requirements for long-term optimum health for given sub-populations, age groups and genders

Try going to the link and doing some research before making comments.  This affects your life very intimately, and is cause for a thinking person's concern.

No, that's all a load of ****.

Check the rumours section of this http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/faq.jsp

Oh dear.  Well this is confusing ...

Like The White Rabbit, I'm from Australia.  The site Gardenstart first quoted extensively from is a European site about fears of what effects the Codex might have in Europe.  Bill S510 is US legislation, and the FDA is an American government agency.  That seems to be a rather mixed-up evidence base, needing careful thought, unpacking and clarification.

This seems to be one of the main points of confusion of the issues amongst people who fear the Codex or who are sharing and promoting fear about it.  The Codex is not a source of legislation and cannot enact legislation in any country or nation.  That is up to individual governments in individual countries and nations.  The Codex can only do what it says it does: develop standards, guidelines and texts that may help individual governments to decide what their individual sets of legislation will be for their own countries. 

If we're talking about quality of research, rather than just quantity, research and forming an argument takes care, and evidence has to be relevant, and cited or quoted.  Mixing up evidence only confuses issues immensely.  It's also important to go direct to the sources one is arguing about, rather than only to quote or cite people (who may merely be citing other people) who don't cite any evidence for what they're saying whatsoever (which I think is a great fault in the case at the site Gardenstart quoted:
anh-europe.org/campaigns/codex#Individual ). 

I haven't read the US Bill S510, and I doubt I'm going to, because it doesn't affect me in Australia.  To read the actual text, it's surprisingly hard to find on the net, given all the hullabaloo that seems to be out there about it, let alone about the Codex.  But anyone who wants to argue about it should read it.  I've found a version, from late 2009:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtex … l=s111-510

If my understanding of 'struck out' is right, a great deal of the bill actually appears to have been ditched by the Senate committee?

Last edited by cengland (Tue 23 Nov 10 9:07am)

I think these threads in the forum especially have brought it up:

http://www.jamieoliver.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=41025

http://www.jamieoliver.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=48190

wino, i don't think they are "new". It's a pretty odd topic to start out on so I think they are probably from one of these groups who try to farm forums for support. THey probably pick on us a bit more because of jamie's name and are maybe hoping that he'll jump on their band wagon.

gardenstart, from my understanding the FDA is a USA government organisation. They are not international. In australia we have a similar group called food standards australia (we also have another called the therapeutic goods administration that takes care of pharmaceuticals....as you can see different countries set up their regulating bodies differently). The FDA just like food standards australia will have documents and legislation that covers food safety. Both as I gather will take from the Codex because the codex is a nice little (or big) collection of worlds best practise in all things food. But they'll only take what they want out of it. Like all similar international standards and recommendations, each country will decide which bits they want and which they don't and then they'll make up their documents and legislation. So if you have a problem with what the FDA is doing then it's an internal USA thing not an international thing.

And another thing, so anyone on the "bad" side of a war must automatically not be allowed to do anything else in their lives? And it's a bit odd, many of the people of adult age around world war II would be very elderly by now, and I imagine not really up to taking over the world one food standard at a time.

I'll take clues as long as they are based in reality.