Gentically Modified (GM) Food Leads To New Dis-ease

Just in case you thought it was fine to eat Genetically Modified (GM) foods (better identified as "FrankenFoods"), along comes a study which makes it clear that you are eating a make believe non-food at your own peril and, worse yet, you are feeding it to your kids at their peril as well.

It is important to note that Codex Alimentarius, which sets standards for the international trade of food, permits genetically modified (GM) foods and makes no effort to limit, control or eliminate them. In fact, the US has been trying for years to prevent the labeling of GM foods and seed in international trade to emulate its domestic policy which prohibits any label indication that foods contain GM ingredients, as 75-80% of all foods sold in the US do.

Now it appears that the increasingly prevalent nightmare of a dis-ease called "Morgellon's Dis-ease" may be a result of GM crops and food.

Morgellon's Dis-ease was first described when a woman's 3 year old son developed rashes and intensely itchy sores which produced weird multi-color fibers emerging from his skin. She put up a website about the condition in 2001 and named it "Morgellons Disease" after a 17th century report of a similar affliction.

The allopathic community of Western, drug-oriented physicians labeled sufferers as delusional. As a scientist, I have a great deal of difficulty explaining how a delusion can produce colored fibers which protrude from the skin and continue to grow in a petri dish. Be that as it may, the multi-colored fibers produced by the "delusion" have been analyzed and we now know that Morgellon's Dis-ease is no longer rare, nor is it mysterious any longer. A study of the fibers shows that they contain DNA from both a fungus and a bacterium which are used in the commercial preparation of genetically modified (GM) foods and non-food crops (such as cotton). The fibers themselves are primarily cellulose, which the human body cannot breakdown or manufacture.

So, GM technology apparently has, like Professor Frankenstein, found a way to animate the non-living. These fibers twist and twine, grow and divide. In short, living beneath the skin of people, they form parasitic lesions out of what should be non-living material but which, through the horror of genetic modification, have taken on the characteristics of a living thing.

The symptoms are so unbearable that a number of people suffering from the disorder have committed suicide rather than deal with the unbearable pain. The constant feeling of something very much like an insect crawling without stop beneath the skin and unbearable itching are two common symptoms. Of course, it is possible to speculate that the attitude of most physicians that the condition is a mental aberration rather than a physical one may not have helped these poor souls to cope with their affliction.

How wide spread is Morgellon's Dis-ease? Some registries have 1200 or more people but these registrants only represent those who have access to the internet and have stumbled across the registry sites. The disease produces material unlike anything most people have ever seen. (http://www.morgellons.org/) and
these pictures show fibers removed from lesions on the skin of Morgellon's Dis-ease sufferers.

No picture, however, can show you the insects crawling under the skin day and night that torment their victims. Frighteningly, some researchers say that every person they have tested has some level of Morgellon's type pathology in their skin.

If the hypothesis is accurate and the dis-ease is caused by sowing, growing and eating GM food, that would, however, make sense. 75-80 % of all US food contains unlabeled GM ingredients. We have no mechanisms in the body to breakdown these unnatural components of the materials which the FDA says are the same as food and prohibits the labeling thereof. We have no way of getting rid of the indigestible, toxic or even lethal acidic materials injected into the nucleus of our food by high energy guns and biochemical tricks that nature never thought of.

Given that the US is allowing the greatest biological experiment in the history of humankind, we should not be skeptical about the possibility that this tragic and terrifying dis-ease may be caused by terrifying make-believe food with all-too-real dangers inserted inside them where they cannot be seen, tasted, or otherwise detected by normal means, only by specialized laboratories.

Part of the objective of the pH Miracle Living Center and Legal Fund is to make sure that 3rd world countries have the labs, and the training necessary to determine what food is clean and safe, and what food is damaged by techniques by Genetic Manipulation.

In the meantime, there is a very important Codex meeting in Ottawa. Either the African Pro-health Coalition will hold its ground in the meeting and continue to defy the US and hold fast to their fervent determination to not allow GM seeds into their countries and to require substantial labeling on all foods which contain GM components.

Link Between Morgellon's Dis-ease and GMOs
by Barbara H. Peterson

Global Research, March 27, 2008

Since the Clinton administration made biotechnology "a strategic priority for U.S. government backing" (1), giant transnational agri-business concerns have aggressively taken over the global food chain by flooding it with Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) without regard for the consequences to the earth or its inhabitants. This takeover not only has the potential for global economic devastation, but threatens the earth's population with far-reaching health concerns as well. One health concern that seems to coincide with the GMO revolution is Morgellons disease. What if the advent of Morgellons dis-ease has something to do with the ingestion of GMO foods?

Morgellons Dis-ease - What is it?

Very little can be found regarding this disease. Originally, sufferers were told that their problem was imaginary. This was of little comfort to the people who were suffering.

Morgellons Dis-ease sufferers report strange, fiber-like material sticking out of sores or wounds that erupt on the skin. This is accompanied by painful, intense itching, that has been described as "an ever present sensation as if something is crawling under the skin." (2)

On May 18, 2006, KGW, a local news channel reporting out of the Oregon area published this story:

Strange sickness: Mystery disease horror story (excerpt)

[Dr. Drottar] The disabled family practice doctor felt like bugs were crawling under her skin.

"If I fully tell people what has gone on with me medically, they think they're in the twilight zone," said Drottar.

She woke up with the feeling that fluid was flowing just below her skin. Often black or blue hair like fibers protruded from her skin, she said.

"I thought I had been exposed to asbestos. I thought I was having asbestos fibers come out of my skin. I was pulling long, thin, small hair-like fibers that were extremely sharp that could literally pierce through my finger nails," Drottar said.

In addition to the feeling of bugs and the fibers, Drottar also suffered from severe depression, chronic fatigue and a weakened immune system. As a result, she had to give up her family practice, Drottar said. (3)

Morgellons and GMO - the Link

Little information has been revealed concerning the long-term health effects of GMO crops on humans or animals, and even less information can be had regarding research correlating Morgellons with GMO foods. This is suspicious right off the bat, because it would seem that there would be a natural curiosity regarding a link between Genetically Modified Organisms that people ingest regularly and inorganic fibers that protrude from a person's skin. This would be right up a geneticist's alley, and quite worthy of intensive research. So, why aren't there a ton of published studies? Why is it so difficult finding anything related to this? Could it be that companies such as Monsanto have enough clout to effectively squash these stories? If they have enough clout to ruin countries by deceiving impoverished farmers into purchasing patented GMO seeds, and then take it a step further and force these poor people to purchase seeds year after year instead of harvesting their own, then they have enough clout to ask our more than willing corporate government to manipulate the press...again.

According to Mike Stagman, PhD, "Genetic Engineering is a nightmare technology that has already caused MANY disease epidemics -- documented but unpublicized." (4)

Well Monsanto, you let at least one study slip through. With the help of a couple of search engines, the following article by Whitley Strieber published on October 12, 2007, titled "Skin Disease May Be Linked to GM Food" was found, which concludes that the fibers taken from a Morgellons sufferer contain the same substance that is "used commercially to produce genetically-modified plants." Here is the article:

Skin Disease May Be Linked to GM Food
12-Oct-2007

Many people--and most physicians--have written off Morgellons disease as either a hoax or hypochondria. But now there is evidence that this mysterious disease may be REAL and related to GENETICALLY MODIFIED food!

The skin of Morgellons victims oozes mysterious strands that have been identified as cellulose (which cannot be manufactured by the human body), and people have the sensation of things crawling beneath their skin. The first known case of Morgellons occurred in 2001, when Mary Leitao created a web site describing the disease, which had infected her young son. She named it Morgellons after a 17th century medical study in France that described the same symptoms.

In the Sept. 15-21 issue of New Scientist magazine, Daniel Elkan describes a patient he calls "Steve Jackson," who "for years" has "been finding tiny blue, red and black fibers growing in intensely itchy lesions on his skin." He quotes Jackson as saying, "The fibers are like pliable plastic and can be several millimeters long. Under the skin, some are folded in a zigzag pattern. These can be as fine as spider silk, yet strong enough to distend the skin when you pull them, as if you were pulling on a hair."

Doctors say that this type of disease could only be caused by a parasite, but anti-parasitic medications do not help. Psychologists insist that this is a new version of the well-known syndrome known as "delusional parasitosis." While this is a "real" disease, it is not a physically-caused one.

But now there is physical evidence that Morgellons is NOT just psychological. When pharmacologist Randy Wymore offered to study some of these fibers if people sent them to him, he discovered that "fibers from different people looked remarkably similar to each other and yet seem to match no common environmental fibers."

When they took them to a police forensic team, they said they were not from clothing, carpets or bedding. They have no idea what they are.

Researcher Ahmed Kilani says he was able to break down two fiber samples and extract their DNA. He found that they belonged to a fungus.

An even more provocative finding is that biochemist Vitaly Citovsky discovered that the fibers contain a substance called "Agrobacterium," which, according to New Scientist, is "used commercially to produce genetically-modified plants." Could GM plants be "causing a new human disease?" (5)

GMO - Not on My Watch!

The giant transnational corporations behind the GMO revolution are hitting us in our most vulnerable spot - our bellies. Most people have been brought up with an innate trust that what they purchase from the store is safe to eat. This is no longer true, since most processed foods contain genetically engineered ingredients that can have disastrous effects on both animal and human health. What you purchase from the corner store might just change your DNA and create such frightening symptoms that the general public simply does not believe it. What is worse is that when you go to the doctor to get help, he/she tells you what you are experiencing is all in your head. This is rubbish! It is up to people who care to make the correlations between what we eat and what happens to our bodies. Remember the old saying - "you are what you eat?" Well, I know this is true.

Notes:

1) Engdahl, F.W. (2007). Seeds of Destruction.

2) Stagman, M. Phd. (2006). GMO Disease Epidemics: Bt-cotton Fiber Disease. Retrieved from http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/08/344305.shtml

3) Porter, L. (2006). Strange sickness: Mystery disease horror story. Retrieved from http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_051806_news_sweeps_strange_sickness_morgellons.53b2569a.html

4) Stagman, M. Phd. (2006). GMO Disease Epidemics: Bt-cotton Fiber Disease. Retrieved from http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/08/344305.shtml

5) Strieber, W. (2007). Skin Disease Might be Linked to GM Food. Retrieved from
http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=6486

An Unsolicited pH Miracle Living Story

The following is an unsolicited testimony of the pH Miracle Living Plan. I have found that the pH Miracle Plan works for those who have the conviction and the commitment to make the change physically and emotionally to a new way of living, eating and thinking.

===============================================================

I have been struggling with my health for most of my life. Some maladies were given to me by my mothers’ toxic blood, others I gave to myself. My left ear has been the most prevalent issue for the last 3-5 years. I have had Tympanoplasti / Mastoidectomy surgery twice. Leaving me with some relief but nothing major.

I have eaten poorly (carbohydrates, meat, starch) all of my life in very high doses, very frequently. I consumed more drugs and alcohol then I care to write down. I have been uneasy and anxious to the point of diagnosis and prescribed every S.S.R.I.

Changing diet, perspective, activities, etc. Still, I have not felt right, the feeling of ill health has seemingly gotten worse.

Then I met Chong. Her program combines both Dr. Jensen’s philosophy of colon health, Dr. Young’s Nutritional Supplements and Chong’s own home grown raw foods, herbs, teas and other applications. Her dedication to one’s individual needs is the magic bullet. She really looks at your condition and customizes your program to your needs. She works tirelessly for you.

Spending her moments tending to you hands on and preparing your tonics and soups well into the night. I must say that her soups are something I looked forward to everyday!

She may guide you through every step of the way but you must do the work. I can not emphasize enough the importance of sticking with the program. Diligence and patience on the two components I have had to practice the most. Learning to rest, breath, and think realistically positive.

I have witnessed things change within me both structurally and functionally. My neck has never felt relief even after massage, chiropractic care for years. Now, it feels pain free and my mobility is amazing. I can breathe deeply for the first time since I don’t know how long. All of the stinging sensations are gone from my chest. My left ear is clear and free of pain for days on end. This was the most important things I hoped to accomplish.

My eye sight is better. My skin is colorful and soft. To this point I must say, I also learned more about my body than any anatomy class. The importance of your colon’s health can not be expressed enough. Toxic Colon = Toxic Life.

I’ve learned to be patient with my process of change. Nothing lasting happens in 7 – 10 days. I must do the maintenance program as well as continue pH Miracle alkaline eating habits.

Forget about the cost of this program. All I had to do is think about how much I’ve spent poisoning myself with pizza, burgers, booze, chips, alcohol, cocaine, worry, stress, etc. It is minimal in comparison. The rewards of the pH Miracle Living program are felt immediately and only get deeper and long lasting the more committed you are to getting well.

I am indebted to Chong for the rest of my life. She is a true healer. No glamour is necessary here. She is a treasure of a person and I am so grateful to her and her husband for their hospitality and grace.

I will be coming back for the rest of my life to learn how to live and eliminate the acidic poisons.

Wamaste,

Christopher W. Passmore

Broccoli Prevents Acidic Damage To Blood Vessels

President George H. W. Bush famously said that
he didn't like broccoli, and since he was
president, he didn't have to eat it. But if the
former president becomes over-acidic and starts
showing signs of hyper or hypoglycemia (diabetes),
he may allow broccoli on his plate after all.

New research from the University of Warwick in
England found that eating broccoli could reverse
the vascular damage to blood vessels caused by
metabolic and dietary acids that cause diabetes.

The scientists believe the chemical in broccoli
responsible for the heart-healthy effect is
sulforaphane, which promotes the creating of
alkaline buffers that protect blood vessels,
and reduces the amounts of metabolic and dietary
acids that cause cell damage.

Crucifer vegetables such as broccoli, Brussels
sprouts and cabbage, have been tied to a lower
risk of strokes and heart attacks. People with
diabetes face up to a 500 percent increase in
risk of developing cardiovascular dis-eases that
are linked to damaged blood vessels caused by
metabolic and dietary acids. They also risk other
health problems such as kidney dis-ease which is
also caused by an excessive amount of metabolic and/or
dietary acid.

High blood sugar or acid levels can cause levels
of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) to increase three-fold
to buffer the sugar and increased acidity. Sulforaphane
activates a protein called nrf2 which protects the
blood and lymphatic vessels and lowers the increase of
acidity by 73 percent.

"Our study suggests that compounds such as sulforaphane
from broccoli may help counter processes linked to
the development of vascular disease in diabetes," said
Warwick Professor Paul Thornalley. He added that in
the future it will be important to see if eating a
diet rich in broccoli and other crucifer vegetables
will benefit diabetics. "We believe it will," he said.

According to Dr. Robert O. Young, a research scientist
at the pH Miracle Living Center, "sulforaphane compound
found in broccoli is a powerful antacid or alkaline buffer
that protects the blood, the blood vessels and other
organs that sustains life. Broccoli is one of the most
powerful vegetables for anti-aging! That is why I
included broccoli florets and broccoli sprouts in my
latest anti-oxidant/anti-aging products called,
Doc Broc Power Plants."

http://www.phmiracleliving.com/doc%20broc%20power%20plant.htm

And if you think eating broccoli and/or Doc Broc Power Plants are just for humans than check out this short video which might change your mind:

http://video.yahoo.com/network/100000086?v=4087989&l=100000085

Weight-Bearing Low Impact Exercising Helpful For Back Pain

People who use weight training to ease their lower back pain are better off than those who choose other forms of exercise such as jogging, according to a University of Alberta study.

The study, done in conjunction with the University of Regina, showed a 60 per cent improvement in pain and function levels for people with chronic backache who took part in a 16-week exercise program of resistance training using dumbbells, barbells and other load-bearing exercise equipment.

In contrast, people who chose aerobic training such as jogging, walking on a treadmill or using an elliptical machine to ease their back pain only experienced a 12 per cent improvement, said Robert Kell, an assistant professor of exercise physiology at the University of Alberta, Augustana Campus.

The resistance-training group showed improvements in pain and function of about 60 per cent, while those who took aerobic training experienced only a 12 per cent improvement.

"Any activity that makes you feel better is something you should pursue, but the research indicates that we get better pain management results from resistance training." The extra benefits stem from using the whole-body approach required in resistance training, Kell believes. "We tried to strengthen the entire body and by doing that, we decreased the fatigue people felt throughout the day. They were better able to perform their activities of daily living." Aerobics training generally works just the lower body, he added.

Approximately 80 per cent of North Americans suffer from lower back pain at some point in their lifetimes, and for 85 per cent of them the pain is chronic.

Both types of training did provide other fitness benefits, such as lower acidic body fat.

According to Dr. Robert O. Young, Director of Research at the pH Miracle Living Center, "whole body exercising can also be accomplished using a mini trampoline or rebounder and/or a whole body vibrational machine. Both pieces of equipment exercises every cell in the human body simultaneously. The G-forces of the rebounder compresses and expands the body cells every second whereas the the whole body vibrational machine can compress and expand the body cells up to 50 times per second. This reduces the amount of time you need to exercise from 30 to 60 minutes down to only 5 to 10 minutes a day with the same health and fitness benefits of weight lifting or jogging. The other major benefit of rebounding or whole body vibrational exercising is the low impact or stress on the skeletal and muscular system while maximum benefit for the digestive, circulatory and lymphatic system."

To learn more about whole body vibrational exercising or rebounding, go to:

http://www.phmiracleliving.com/p-357-rebounder-with-bar.aspx
http://www.phmiracleliving.com/p-304-vibraphirm.aspx

The findings are to be published in early 2009 in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.

83 Reasons and Ways To Use The pHour Salts For The Holidays

Young pHorever™ pHour Salts™ created by Dr. Robert
O. Young is the "ultimate" antioxidant, anti-bacterial,
anti-fungal, anti-intoxicant, anti-inflammatory, anti-carcinogenic, anti-aging, energy and athletic
enhancer formulation of bicarbonate mineral salts:

http://www.phmiracleliving.com/p-221-phour-salts-tm-454-grams.aspx

A combination of four powerful bicarbonate
mineral salts (sodium bicarbonate, magnesium
bicarbonate, potassium bicarbonate, and calcium
bicarbonate) for the purpose of anti-oxidant, anti-
aging and maintaining the alkaline design of the
body from both the inside out and the outside in.

These four antioxidant/anti-aging mineral salts
are naturally occurring in all fluids of the body.
Specifically, they may aid in the reduction of dietary
and metabolic acidity helping to maintain the alkaline
design of the human, animal or plant body and slow
down or reverse the aging or decay process.

http://www.phmiracleliving.com/p-221-phour-salts-tm-454-grams.aspx

Dr. Tullio Simmoncini, an oncologist with a cancer
clinic in Rome, Italy has been treating and destroying
cancerous tumors with mineral salts of bicarbonate
for years. Dr. Simmoncini states, "sodium bicarbonate
is safe, extremely inexpensive and unstoppably
effective when it comes to cancerous tissues.
It's an irresistible chemical, cyanide to cancerous
cells for it hits the cancerous cells with a
shock wave of alkalinity, which allows much more
oxygen into the acidic cells than they can tolerate.
Cancerous cells cannot survive in the presence of
high levels of oxygen. Sodium bicarbonate is,
for all intent and purposes, an instant killer
of tumors."

According to Dr. Young, "the use of the Young
pHorever pHour mineral salts is the ultimate
protection against all illness, sickness and
dis-ease, including any aging or cancerous
condition. The pHour salts can not only
improve health and energy but atheletic
performance!"

"All enervation, under-performance, sensitivity,
irritation, inflammation, catarrh, induration,
ulcerations, degeneration, aging and cancerous
conditions are caused by a four letter word - ACID,
which is an acronym which stands for:

A = acidic food and drink, attitudes and activities,
C = compromised internal acidic environment,
I = illness and dis-ease, and,
D = desire for more acidic foods, drinks, attitudes
and activities, and the cycle repeats itself. We
ingest acidic medicines to lessen the symptoms of our
illness. We stimulate the body with unhealthy forms
of energy providing quick, often temporary relief from
our symptoms which begins the cycle all over again
creating a very powerful pattern of poor health and
dis-ease," states Dr. Young.

"During the Olympics in Athens, Greece and now in
Beijing, China several top athletes have improved
their athletic performance and even broke world
records using sodium bicarbonate," states Dr. Young.

A recent London Times article and scientific
research substantiates Dr. Young's claims,
"some athletes relied on more rudimentary -
and legal - means to boost their race times,
including using a substance tucked away in a
kitchen cupboard or in the back of a refrigerator."
This substance is, sodium bicarbonate or baking soda.

"Athletes for years have sworn that taking a spoonful
of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) helps them to
keep going for longer. For years, experts doubted
that there was anything other than a placebo effect
to these claims until they subjected the substance
to rigorous examination. Most exercise scientists
investigating the trend for "soda-doping" among
athletes and gym-goers have shown that it offers
significant benefits for endurance and speed."

At Loughborough University, for instance,
physiologists reporting in the June issue of
the International Journal of Sports Medicine
showed that swimmers who took baking soda about
one hour before a 200m event were able to shave
a significant time off their usual performances.
Dr Jonathan Folland, who led the study, says that
it is not uncommon for top swimmers to take
sodium bicarbonate (another name for the substance)
before a competition to give them an edge. Indeed,
he showed that of nine swimmers tested, eight
recorded their fastest times after ingesting a
supplement of the common baking ingredient - sodium
bicarbonate.

Another small study by Dr Ronald Deitrick,of the
American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), showed
that competitive runners also benefited. Dr Deitrick,
who presented his findings at the ACSM annual
conference, gave 800m runners either a placebo or
a sodium bicarbonate capsule, which they took with
water. Although a few of the runners had minor
gastrointestinal problems after swallowing the
capsules, a greater number benefited significantly.

Just last week, an Australian sports scientist said
that the use of legal performance-enhancing substances
could become a major issue of the Beijing Olympics.
"Beijing will probably be remembered for the abuse
of legal aids," said Robin Parisotto on Australian
radio.

And Dr Deitrick believes that bicarbonate of soda
can significantly improve performance. "If you took
out the participants who experienced negative side-
effects... you'd see an average improvement in running
times of about 2.2 seconds," Dr Deitrick says. "For a
relatively short running distance, that's very
significant."

But how does something so seemingly innocuous have
such a dramatic effect? During prolonged or intense
exercise muscles produce large amounts of acidic
waste products, such as lactic acid, that lead to
soreness, stiffness and fatigue. Because sodium
bicarbonate naturally reduces acids, it acts as a
buffer against these performance-limiting by-products.

Current research suggests that it is particularly
helpful in speed-based events, including sprints,
football and other fast-moving games, and middle-
distance (up to 10km) running, swimming and cycling.
"Essentially, sodium bicarbonate is an alkaline
substance that increases the pH of the blood,"
Dr Folland says. "This seems to reduce and offset
the acidity produced in the muscles during intense,
anaerobic exercise that produces lactic acid most
quickly, such as fast running or swimming."

In Dr Folland's study, swimmers who took the sodium
bicarbonate knocked 1.5 seconds off their time for
200m, a difference that may seem insignificant to
recreational swimmers but which is substantial at
elite level.

"At the last Olympics, the top four swimmers in the
men's 200m freestyle were separated by just 1.4
seconds," Dr Folland says. "So, in theory, it could
be the difference between winning a medal and not."

Anyone can try it, he says, but only those who are
serious enough to monitor their times and progress
in sports such as running, swimming or cycling may
notice the few seconds advantage it might provide.
"The increments of improvement are relatively small
to the average person, although significant to
someone who competes," Dr Folland says.

The following list is 83 ways of using Dr. Youngs',
Young pHorever pHour Salts, antioxidant/anti-aging
athletic enhancing formula in the prevention and/or
reversal of all sensitivity, irritation, catarrh,
induration, ulceration, degeneration, pain, fatigue,
enervation, illness, sickness, and dis-ease:

1. Protection against ALL cancerous conditions!
Take 1 scoop. of pHour salts in 1 glass of alkaline
water and drink 3 to 4 times a day.

2. The alkalizing of acidic cancerous tissues
and tumors. Take 1 Tbs. of pHour salts in 1
liter of alkaline water and drink 3 to 4 times
a day.

3. The alkalizing of the blood and tissues to
maintain the alkaline design of the body and
to prevent ALL sickness and dis-ease! Take
1 scoop of pHour salts in 1 glass of alkaline
water and drink 3 to 4 times a day.

4. Protection against acids that may cause
nephropathy. According to Dr. Michael Metro,
"patients receiving sodium bicarbonate achieved
urine pH's of 6.5 as opposed to 5.6 with those
receiving sodium chloride. The alkalization
is theorized to have a protective effect
against the formation of acids that may cause
nephropathy." Take 1 Tbs. of pHour salts in
1 liter of alkaline water and drink 3 to 4 times
a day.

5. In the prevention and/or reversal of autism.
According to Dr. William Shaw, "an extremely
simple therapy used by physicians to treat autism
is to supply a mild antidote that neutralizes the
excess acids." Take 1 Tbs. of pHour salts in
1 liter of water and drink 3 to 4 times a day.

6. To prevent dis-ease and disease of the kidneys.
The kidneys are usually the first organs to show
acidic damage where the mineral salts of bicarbonate
help to promote excretion of acidic toxins from
the tissues. According to Dr. Thomas P. Kennedy,
of the American Medical Association, "substituting
a sodium bicarbonate solution for saline infusion
prior to administration of radio-contrast material
seems to reduce the incidence of nephropathy."
Take 1 Tbs. of pHour salts in 1 liter of alkaline
water and drink 3 to 4 times a day.

7. The removal of heavy metals, dioxins and furans.
Comparison of cancerous tissue with healthy tissues
from the same person shows that the cancerous
tissue has a much higher concentration of toxic
chemicals, acidic hormones and pesticides.
Take 1 Tbs. of pHour salts in 1 liter of alkaline
water and drink 3 to 4 times a day.

8. To eliminate or reduce titers of bacteria or
fungi from the biological transformation of
body cells. The mineral salts of bicarbonate
are an excellent anti-bacterial and anti-fungal
that is very diffusible and thus very effective
with no negative side-effects. Take 1 Tbs.
of pHour salts in 1 liter of alkaline water
and drink 3 to 4 times a day.

9. To help reverse pulmonary neoplasm of the lung use
1 Tbs. of pHour salts in l liter of alkaline water
and drink 3 t 4 times a day.

10. To help reverse the acidic condition
pneumonia of the lungs mist or nebulize 10 ml
of alkaline water with 2 drops of liquid
sodium and/or potassium bicarbonate 2 to 3 times
a day.

11. To help reverse the acidic condition of
asthma mist or nebulize 10 ml of alkaline
water with 2 drops of liquid sodium and/or
potassium bicarbonate 2 to 3 times a day.

12. To help reverse the acidic condition of
sinusitis mist or nebulize 10 ml of alkaline
water with 2 drops of liquid sodium and/or
potassium bicarbonate 2 to 3 times a day.

13. According to Dr. Tullio Simoncini, "the most
effective measure to treat RT-induced mucosititis
in patients with head and neck cancer is frequent
oral rinsing with pHour salts to reduce the amount
of oral microbial flora." Take 1 Tbs. of pHours
salts in 1 liter of alkaline water and drink
3 to 4 times a day.

14. "For uncontrolled diabetes and circulatory
insufficiency due to shock or severe dehydration,
extracorporeal circulation of blood, cardiac arrest,
and severe primary lactic acidosis, take sodium
bicarbonate," states Dr. Tullio Simoncini. Take
1 Tbs. of pHour salts in 1 liter of alkaline water
and drink 3 to 4 times a day.

15. Keep a jar of pHour Salts in your fridge for
smelling fresh and reducing acidic gaseous residues
from spoiling foods.

16. A pinch of pHour Salts in a gallon of freshly
brewed iced tea takes out the bad tasting acidic
tannins and prevents cloudiness and acidic effect.

17. When soaking dried beans or cooking cabbage,
add a dash to the water to make them less gaseous.

18. The pHour Salts will reduce or eliminate the
flatulence caused by the beans.

19. To keep tomato soup from curdling, sprinkle some
pHour Salts on the simmering tomatoes and skim off
the white foam before adding soy, almond or hazel
nut milk.

20. Two tablespoons of pHour Salts added to hot water
to broccoli and cauliflower keeps the veggies crisp and
preserves the electrical potential of the cooked
veggies.

21. Pet care: Sprinkle pHour Salts onto his/her coat
and brush or comb through for dry acidic odor
protection between baths.

22. Give plastic and rubber toys a bath in a solution
of 4 Tb. of pHour Salts dissolved in 1 quart warm
water. Sprinkle fabric toys with pHour Salts brushed
off after 15 minutes.

23. Brush teeth with a teaspoon of pHour Salts on a damp
toothbrush to avoid acidic plaque and keep breath fresh.

24. Soak retainers, mouth guards, and dentures in
pHour Salts and warm water solution (2 tsp to a
drinking glass full).

25. Rinse mouth with a teaspoon of pHour Salts and
1 drop of essential peppermint oil for an incredible
mouth wash and freshener.

26. Make a paste of 3 parts pHour Salts to one part
water for an effective and inexpensive skin exfoliant.
Just apply it to your skin with fingertips or a
washcloth in a gentle, circular motion and rinse.

27. Mix a little pHour Salts into your shampoo to
strip out product buildup, or add it into your
conditioner for extra-healthy, non-split ends.

28. Apply a paste of pHour Salts and water to take
the ouch out of bug bites, bee stings, sunburns,
rashes, poison ivy, or pour in bathwater for relief
from the itch of chicken pox and measles.

29. Drink 1 to 3 teaspoon of pHour Salts in ½ a glass
of water to relieve acid indigestion and heartburn.

30. Use pHour Salts as a mouthwash for bad breath or to
soothe canker sore pain. Add a 1/2 tsp to water
a swish your mouth and then discard or drink.

31. Run pHour Salts and water solution through your
coffee maker, followed by two fresh water brew
cycles to keep your java tasting tip top. Of course,
the best solution is not to drink acidic java.

32. Add a pinch of pHour Salts to your cup of java
to reduce the acidic effects of the caffeine. The
best recommendation is not drink beverages that
are acidic.

33. Zap nasty cutting board tastes and smells by
scrubbing them with a mixture of pHour Salts and water.

34. pHour salts will cut grease, wont' dry out the
wood, and will also take garlic and onion smells
off your skin.

35. Use a damp paper towel and a sprinkling of
pHour Salts to remove tea and punch stains from
china and plastic. Especially chlorophyll stains
in your water drinking bottle.

36. Neutralize spilled battery acid in a flash with
a handful of pHour Salts.

37. pHour Salts and a wet wash cloth makes an excellent
bumper buffer when little scuffs appear. It also shines
up bike chrome.

38. pHour Salts is a natural fire-stopper. Keep a jar
close at hand when you are working with live fire of
any kind. A handful can put out grease, electrical,
wood, and fuel fires.

39. Sprinkle pHour Salts on an outdoor grill or make
a paste with water, and scrub grit off the grill
without the danger of adding nasty cleaning chemicals
to your food.

40. Rub pHour Salts directly on a baby spit up to nix
the smell quickly.

41. Soak sweat-drenched headbands, hats and gloves or
smoky clothes in a pHour Salts solution before they hit
the washing machine. Or if you're pressed for time,
sprinkle it on clothing for a quick odor mask.

42. Gardening Mildew! Keep fungus, black spots and
powdery mildew off your precious plants by mixing
pHour Salts, horticultural oil and soap and applying
it to affected leaves. Just add 1 tsp of pHour Salts
and a few drops of dish washing soap to a gallon of
water, and spray once a week, and after it rains.

43. Make a paste of pHour salts by mixing 1/2 tsp of
pHour Salts in some alkaline water and apply to the
armpits for eliminating acidic body dietary and/or
metabolic odors.

44. Drink an 8 ounce glass of pHour salts just
before an acidic meal to buffer or chelate
food acids. Use 1 Tbs. of pHour Salts per
8 ounces of alkaline water.

45. Drink an 8 ounce glass of alkaline water with
1 to 2 Tbs. of pHour Salts upon rising to flush
and clean the alimentary canal.

46. Add 3 tsp. of pHour Salts to your colonic
bag to pull acids and bile from the liver.

47. For a hang offer drink an 8 ounce glass of
alkaline water with 2 Tbs. of pHour salts to
help eliminate the acidic alcohol residues. This
mixture will also reduce blood alcohol when one
has had too much to drink. Of course, I strongly
recommend you eliminate all alcohol consumption
to maintain health and energy.

48. For motion sickness on a boat or plane drink
a 8 to 12 ounce glass of alkaline water with 1
Tbs. of pHour Salts.

49. For morning sickness during pregnancy drink
an 8 ounce glass of alkaline water with 1 Tbs.
of pHour Salts.

50. For restless leg syndrome drink 1 liter or
quart of alkaline water with 2 Tbs. of pHour Salts.

51. For muscle soreness or inflammation drink 1
liter or quart of alkaline water with 2 Tbs.
of pHour Salts.

52. For acne make a paste of pHour salts with
alkaline water and cover the face. Leave on
the face for at least 30 minutes.

53. For sore feet or athlete's feet soak your
feet in warm alkaline water with 2 to 3 Tbs of
pHour Salts.

54. For air born micro-organisms in a closed area,
such as in a plane, drink an 8 ounce glass of alkaline
water with 1 Tbs. of pHour Salts before and after
your flight.

55. Reduce vaginal odor or yeast douche with warm
alkaline water and 1 to 2 tsp. of pHour salts.

56. For an alkaline enema and to help relieve bowel
congestion insert 6 to 8 ounces of warm alkaline
water with 1 Tbs. of pHour Salts.

57. For relaxing after a hard day at work take
an alkalizing hot bath with 5 to 6 Tbs. of
pHour Salts.

58. To maintain a healthy urine and saliva pH at
7.2 or above drink 1 liter/quart of alkaline
water with 1 Tbs of pHour Salts 3 times a day.

59. If you feel like you have a sore throat developing
or if you have a sore throat gargle with a mixture of
1 Tbs of pHour salts in 4 t 6 ounces of water.

60. For acid reflux, nausea, or indigestion drink
4 to 6 ounces of alkaline water with 1 Tbs of pHour
salts to buffer excess hydrochloric acid and dietary
acid.

61. For constipation drink 1 liter of pHour salts with
1 to 2 Tbs of pHour salts on an empty stomach an first
thing in the morning.

62. For muscle or bone soreness drink 1 liter of
pHour salts with 1 to 2 Tbs at least once a day.

63. After any physical or emotional activity or
event drink 1 liter of pHour salts with 1 Tbs.
to reduce irritation or inflammation.

64. For sore hands or feet soak in alkaline
war, water with 3 to 4 Tbs. of pHour salts.

65. For detoxing the skin when there is irritation
or inflammation use one tub of pHour salts in
a warm to hot bath to pull acids from the skin.

66. For high blood sugar take 1 Tbs. of pHour
salts in 1 liter of alkaline water to lower the
acidic levels of sugar in the blood.

67. For high blood cholesterol take 1 Tbs. of
pHour salts in 1 liter of alkaline water to
buffer metabolic or dietary acids that is
causing the high bleed cholesterol.

68. For emotional stress or anxiety take
1 Tbs. in 1 liter of alkaline water and drink
2 to 3 times a day.

69. To raise the pH and total alkalinity of the
water for pools and spas add several Tbs. of
pHour salts to restore the pH balance of the
water that has a high level of chlorine.

70. Add a tub of pHour salts to your septic
tank to control the pH, bacteria and yeast.

71. Long term acidity causes acid blood, which
is like acid rain, causes the calcium from the
bones to be leached out as a result. Take 1
tsp. of pHour salts in 3 t 4 ounces of alkaline
water and drink 3 to 4 times a day to prevent
the symptoms of bone wasting and acidic blood.

72. Dr. Simoncini states, "earlier and more
frequent use of sodium bicarbonate was
associated with higher early resuscitability
rates and with better long-term neurological
outcome. Sodium bicarbonate is beneficial
for CPR."

73. "Sodium bicarbonate is useful in prevention
and reversal of neurological disorders," states
Dr. Simoncini.

74. Make a paste of pHour salts and place it
any where on the body to relieve irritation,
and/or inflammation of the skin.

75. To maintain health, energy, vitality and
the alkaline design of the body take 1 tsp of
pHour salts in 3 to 4 ounces of water and drink
3 to 4 times a day.

76. To hyper-alkalinize the tissues in the
prevention and reversal of an ulceration or
degeneration take 1 tsp of pHour salts in
3 to 4 ounces of alkaline water and
drink 3 to 4 times a day. To determine if
the body tissues are in a state of hyper-
alkalinization the urine pH will be over
an 8.0 pH.

77. To increase energy take 1 tsp of pHour
salts in 3 to 4 ounces of water and drink.

78. To reduce fatigue take 1 tsp of pHour
salts in 3 to 4 ounces of water and drink.

79. To increase stamina take 3 tsp of pHour
salts in 1 liter of water and drink 1 hour
before exercise or athletic event.

80. To increase endurance and speed take 3 tsp
of pHour salts in 1 liter of water and drink
1 hour before exercise or athletic event.

81. For running or swimming sprints take 3 tsp
of pHour salts in 6 to 8 ounces of water 1 hour
before the event to increase speed.

82. During marathons, or athletic events that
last longer then a few minutes take 1 to 3 tsp
of pHour salts in 6 to 8 ounces of water every
hour.

83. To reduce pain and swelling due to injury
or lactic acid build-up take 3 tsp of pHour
salts in 1 liter of water and drink.

It is important of remember that the human body
is alkaline by design and acidic by function.
To maintain that healthy ageless, athletic
alkaline design of your body may I suggest using
Young pHorever pHour Salts everyday.

http://www.phmiracleliving.com/p-221-phour-salts-tm-454-grams.aspx

According to Dr. Robert O. Young, "if the body's
blood and tissues remain alkaline at 7.365 to
7.4 it is susceptible to NO illness, sickness or
dis-ease. This is what I refer to as true immunity
and true prevention!"

Please let us know how you are using your pHour
Salts and how it is working for you, especially
during the Holiday Season. We would
love to share your testimony of the pHour
Salts with others.

Cancer (ACIDS) Will Be The Number One Killer By 2010!

Kim Tinkham was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in February 2007, just two days before her fiftieth birthday. Rather than go the conventional route of mastectomy followed by chemo and/or radiation she chose to seek out an alternative way to heal her body. Her choice to search for an alternative coupled with a late night email landed her as a guest on a very well known female afternoon talk show host in March of 2007, (The Oprah Winfrey Show) where she stood her ground for her right to choose and shared with the audience that ‘you cannot make a decision based on fear’.

With hundreds of emails from people around the world who watched the show segment applauding her decision and spurring her on she spent the next four months seeking out answers from doctors and practitioners around the world. With her self imposed deadline of October fast approaching and no answer to the question “what causes cancer?” she finally found the research of Dr. Robert O. Young, a microbiologist in California. After communicating with Dr. Young via phone and email she made the decision to follow his protocol and three months later was pronounced cancer free.

Kim had the courage, the conviction and the commitment to make the necessary lifestyle and dietary changes to reverse her cancerous condition. She is just one example among thousands around the world that realized that cancer is not a disease of the tissues but an acidic condition of the body fluids. That cancer is NOT a cell. Cancer is a poisonous liquid acid from lifestyle, diet, metabolism and/or environment that break down cells.

Cancer will overtake heart disease as the world's top killer by 2010, part of a trend that should more than double global cancer cases and deaths by 2030. This will not happen to those who understand how to maintain the alkaline design of the body.

The use or the ingestion of acidic substances such as alcohol, coffee, tea, tobacco, animal proteins and sugars of all kinds will be the huge reason for the shift, particularly in China and India, where 40 percent of the world's smokers, alcohol users, animal protein and sugar eaters now live.

Cancer diagnoses around the world have steadily been rising and are expected to hit 12 million this year. Global cancer deaths are expected to reach 7 million, according to the new report by the World Health Organization.

An annual rise of 1 percent in cases and deaths is expected — with even larger increases in China, Russia and India. That means new cancer cases will likely mushroom to 27 million annually by 2030, with deaths hitting 17 million.

Underlying all this is an expected expansion of the world's population — there will be more people around not get cancer but to do cancer with their lifestyle and diet.

By 2030, there could be 75 million people living with a cancerous condition around the world, a number that many health care systems are not equipped to handle. And if they were equipment do understand how to treat cancer without killing the patient!

Here at the pH Miracle Living Center we are concerned about the increase of cancerous conditions worldwide and the lack of knowledge of alternative treatments, that are working.

Because cancer is a clear and present danger, The pH Miracle Living Center and Dr. Young, in conjunction with Kim Tinkham are conducting a "Cancer Survey" to better serve those who are looking for an alternative to radiation, chemo and surgery. If you, a loved one, a friend, a neighbor, etc. are looking for education to prevent or reverse cancer and not more medication, than please help us, help you, help others, by going to our "Cancer Survey" at:

http://www.cancerangel.com/Cancer_Angel_Survey.html

Dear Mr. President - Elect

I really appreciate the balanced article written by Michael Pollan, and published in The New York Times, on November 22, 2008, on the future of our food, around the world. For myself and my family, I can say that we are incredibly blessed to be and to call ourselves farmers. We love Rancho del Sol and the 3,500 avocados and 1000 grapefruit trees we care for. It is our vision to see people around the world turn back to the soil and become organic green farmers again. The obstacles of the future will be far greater than anything we have yet experienced because it will involve the quantity and the quality of our food and our water. You can only live without fruits and vegetables for 40 days and without water for 4 days but you can live without crude oil and animal meat forever. The issues are real and must be resolved and can be resolved if we unite with one voice. I hope you will take the time to read this important article and share it with your family and friends. As a young boy who grew up in the scouting program I still remember our slogan, "Be Prepared." Now is the time to be prepared and learn all we can learn about growing an organic green fruit and vegetable garden. I would love to send you a free brochure with your next order on the five best fruits and vegetables to eat. I can also send you this information via email. Just let me know. It's our gift to you for all your love and support throughout this last year.

Happy Holidays,

Dr. Robert O. Young

PS Check out the Rancho del Sol and our organic avocados, grapefruit, veggie mix, almonds, salts and spices.

http://www.phmiracleliving.com/p-119-avocados-box-25lbs.aspx
http://www.phmiracleliving.com/p-154-grapefruits-organic-box-of-20-25.aspx
http://www.phmiracleliving.com/p-202-ph-miracle-organic-veggie-phlakes-5-pounds.aspx
http://www.phmiracleliving.com/p-344-healthy-phood-pack.aspx

Dear Mr. President-Elect,

It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food. Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration -- the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril. Since then, federal policies to promote maximum production of the commodity crops (corn, soybeans, wheat and rice) from which most of our supermarket foods are derived have succeeded impressively in keeping prices low and food more or less off the national political agenda. But with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact -- so easy to overlook these past few years -- that the health of a nation's food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention.

Complicating matters is the fact that the price and abundance of food are not the only problems we face; if they were, you could simply follow Nixon's example, appoint a latter-day Earl Butz as your secretary of agriculture and instruct him or her to do whatever it takes to boost production. But there are reasons to think that the old approach won't work this time around. For one thing, it depends on cheap energy that we can no longer count on. For another, expanding production of industrial agriculture today would require you to sacrifice important values on which you did campaign. This brings me to the deeper reason you will need not simply to address food prices but to make the reform of the entire food system one of the highest priorities of your administration: Unless you do, you will not be able to make significant progress on the health care crisis, energy independence or climate change. Unlike food, these are issues you did campaign on -- but as you try to address them you will quickly discover that the way we currently grow, process and eat food in America goes to the heart of all three problems and will have to change if we hope to solve them. Let me explain.

After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy -- 19 percent. And while the experts disagree about the exact amount, the way we feed ourselves contributes more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than anything else we do -- as much as 37 percent, according to one study. Whenever farmers clear land for crops and till the soil, large quantities of carbon are released into the air. But the 20th century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food. Put another way, when we eat from the industrial food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases. This state of affairs appears all the more absurd when you recall that every calorie we eat is ultimately the product of photosynthesis -- a process based on making food energy from sunshine. But there is hope and possibility in that simple fact.

In addition to the problems of climate change and America's oil addiction, you have spoken at length on the campaign trail of the health care crisis. Spending on health care has risen from 5 percent of national income in 1960 to 16 percent today, putting a significant drag on the economy. The goal of ensuring the health of all Americans depends on getting those costs under control. There are several reasons health care has gotten so expensive, but one of the biggest, and perhaps most tractable, is the cost to the system of preventable chronic diseases. Four of the top 10 killers in America today are chronic diseases linked to diet: heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes and cancer. It is no coincidence that in the years national spending on health care went from 5 percent to 16 percent of national income, spending on food has fallen by a comparable amount -- from 18 percent of household income to less than 10 percent. While the surfeit of cheap calories that the U.S. food system has produced since the late 1970s may have taken food prices off the political agenda, this has come at a steep cost to public health. You cannot expect to reform the health care system, much less expand coverage, without confronting the public health catastrophe that is the modern American diet.

The impact of the American food system on the rest of the world will have implications for your foreign and trade policies as well. In the past several months more than 30 nations have experienced food riots, and so far one government has fallen. Should high grain prices persist and shortages develop, you can expect to see the pendulum shift decisively away from free trade, at least in food. Nations that opened their markets to the global flood of cheap grain (under pressure from previous administrations as well as the World Bank and the IMF) lost so many farmers that they now find that their ability to feed their own populations hinges on decisions made in Washington (like your predecessor's precipitous embrace of biofuels) and on Wall Street. They will now rush to rebuild their own agricultural sectors and then seek to protect them by erecting trade barriers. Expect to hear the phrases "food sovereignty" and "food security" on the lips of every foreign leader you meet. Not only the Doha round, but the whole cause of free trade in agriculture is probably dead, the casualty of a cheap food policy that a scant two years ago seemed like a boon for everyone. It is one of the larger paradoxes of our time that the very same food policies that have contributed to overnutrition in the first world are now contributing to undernutrition in the third. But it turns out that too much food can be nearly as big a problem as too little -- a lesson we should keep in mind as we set about designing a new approach to food policy.

Rich or poor, countries struggling with soaring food prices are being forcibly reminded that food is a national security issue. When a nation loses the ability to substantially feed itself, it is at the mercy not only of global commodity markets but of other governments as well. At issue is not only the availability of food, which may be held hostage by a hostile state, but its safety: As recent scandals in China demonstrate, we have little control over the safety of imported foods. The deliberate contamination of our food presents another national security threat. At his valedictory press conference in 2004, Tommy Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, offered a chilling warning, saying, "I, for the life of me, cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply, because it is so easy to do."

This, in brief, is the bad news: The food and agriculture policies you've inherited -- designed to maximize production at all costs and relying on cheap energy to do so -- are in shambles, and the need to address the problems they have caused is acute. The good news is that the twinned crises in food and energy are creating a political environment in which real reform of the food system may actually be possible for the first time in a generation. The American people are paying more attention to food today than they have in decades, worrying not only about its price but about its safety, its provenance and its healthfulness. There is a gathering sense among the public that the industrial-food system is broken. Markets for alternative kinds of food -- organic, local, pasture-based, humane -- are thriving as never before. All this suggests that a political constituency for change is building, and not only on the Left: Lately, conservative voices have also been raised in support of reform. Writing of the movement back to local food economies, traditional foods (and family meals) and more sustainable farming, the American Conservative magazine editorialized last summer that "this is a conservative cause if ever there was one."

There are many moving parts to the new food agenda I'm urging you to adopt, but the core idea could not be simpler: We need to wean the American food system off its heavy 20th century diet of fossil fuel and put it back on a diet of contemporary sunshine. True, this is easier said than done -- fossil fuel is deeply implicated in everything about the way we currently grow food and feed ourselves. To put the food system back on sunlight will require policies to change how things work at every link in the food chain: in the farm field, in the way food is processed and sold and even in the American kitchen and at the American dinner table. Yet the sun still shines down on our land every day, and photosynthesis can still work its wonders wherever it does. If any part of the modern economy can be freed from its dependence on oil and successfully resolarized, surely it is food.

How We Got Here

Before setting out an agenda for reforming the food system, it's important to understand how that system came to be -- and also to appreciate what, for all its many problems, it has accomplished. What our food system does well is precisely what it was designed to do, which is to produce cheap calories in great abundance. It is no small thing for an American to be able to go into a fast-food restaurant and to buy a double cheeseburger, fries and a large Coke for a price equal to less than an hour of labor at the minimum wage -- indeed, in the long sweep of history, this represents a remarkable achievement.

It must be recognized that the current food system -- characterized by monocultures of corn and soy in the field and cheap calories of fat, sugar and feedlot meat on the table -- is not simply the product of the free market. Rather, it is the product of a specific set of government policies that sponsored a shift from solar (and human) energy on the farm to fossil-fuel energy.

Did you notice when you flew over Iowa during the campaign how the land was completely bare -- black -- from October to April? What you were seeing is the agricultural landscape created by cheap oil. In years past, except in the dead of winter, you would have seen in those fields a checkerboard of different greens: pastures and hayfields for animals, cover crops, perhaps a block of fruit trees. Before the application of oil and natural gas to agriculture, farmers relied on crop diversity (and photosynthesis) both to replenish their soil and to combat pests, as well as to feed themselves and their neighbors. Cheap energy, however, enabled the creation of monocultures, and monocultures in turn vastly increased the productivity both of the American land and the American farmer; today the typical corn-belt farmer is single-handedly feeding 140 people.

This did not occur by happenstance. After World War II, the government encouraged the conversion of the munitions industry to fertilizer -- ammonium nitrate being the main ingredient of both bombs and chemical fertilizer -- and the conversion of nerve-gas research to pesticides. The government also began subsidizing commodity crops, paying farmers by the bushel for all the corn, soybeans, wheat and rice they could produce. One secretary of agriculture after another implored them to plant "fence row to fence row" and to "get big or get out."

The chief result, especially after the Earl Butz years, was a flood of cheap grain that could be sold for substantially less than it cost farmers to grow because a government check helped make up the difference. As this artificially cheap grain worked its way up the food chain, it drove down the price of all the calories derived from that grain: the high-fructose corn syrup in the Coke, the soy oil in which the potatoes were fried, the meat and cheese in the burger.

Subsidized monocultures of grain also led directly to monocultures of animals: Since factory farms could buy grain for less than it cost farmers to grow it, they could now fatten animals more cheaply than farmers could. So America's meat and dairy animals migrated from farm to feedlot, driving down the price of animal protein to the point where an American can enjoy eating, on average, 190 pounds of meat a year -- a half pound every day.

But if taking the animals off farms made a certain kind of economic sense, it made no ecological sense whatever: their waste, formerly regarded as a precious source of fertility on the farm, became a pollutant -- factory farms are now one of America's biggest sources of pollution. As Wendell Berry has tartly observed, to take animals off farms and put them on feedlots is to take an elegant solution -- animals replenishing the fertility that crops deplete -- and neatly divide it into two problems: a fertility problem on the farm and a pollution problem on the feedlot. The former problem is remedied with fossil-fuel fertilizer; the latter is remedied not at all.

What was once a regional food economy is now national and increasingly global in scope -- thanks again to fossil fuel. Cheap energy -- for trucking food as well as pumping water -- is the reason New York City now gets its produce from California rather than from the "Garden State" next door, as it did before the advent of interstate highways and national trucking networks. More recently, cheap energy has underwritten a globalized food economy in which it makes (or rather, made) economic sense to catch salmon in Alaska, ship it to China to be filleted and then ship the fillets back to California to be eaten; or one in which California and Mexico can profitably swap tomatoes back and forth across the border; or Denmark and the United States can trade sugar cookies across the Atlantic. About that particular swap the economist Herman Daly once quipped, "Exchanging recipes would surely be more efficient."

Whatever we may have liked about the era of cheap, oil-based food, it is drawing to a close. Even if we were willing to continue paying the environmental or public health price, we're not going to have the cheap energy (or the water) needed to keep the system going, much less expand production. But as is so often the case, a crisis provides opportunity for reform, and the current food crisis presents opportunities that must be seized.

In drafting these proposals, I've adhered to a few simple principles of what a 21st century food system needs to do. First, your administration's food policy must strive to provide a healthful diet for all our people; this means focusing on the quality and diversity (and not merely the quantity) of the calories that American agriculture produces and American eaters consume. Second, your policies should aim to improve the resilience, safety and security of our food supply. Among other things, this means promoting regional food economies both in America and around the world. And lastly, your policies need to reconceive agriculture as part of the solution to environmental problems like climate change.

These goals are admittedly ambitious, yet they will not be difficult to align or advance as long as we keep in mind this One Big Idea: Most of the problems our food system faces today are because of its reliance on fossil fuels, and to the extent that our policies wring the oil out of the system and replace it with the energy of the sun, those policies will simultaneously improve the state of our health, our environment and our security.

I. Resolarizing the American Farm

What happens in the field influences every other link of the food chain on up to our meals -- if we grow monocultures of corn and soy, we will find the products of processed corn and soy on our plates. Fortunately for your initiative, the federal government has enormous leverage in determining exactly what happens on the 830 million acres of American crop and pasture land.

Today most government farm and food programs are designed to prop up the old system of maximizing production from a handful of subsidized commodity crops grown in monocultures. Even food assistance programs like WIC and school lunches focus on maximizing quantity rather than quality, typically specifying a minimum number of calories (rather than maximums) and seldom paying more than lip service to nutritional quality. This focus on quantity may have made sense in a time of food scarcity, but today it gives us a school lunch program that feeds chicken nuggets and Tater Tots to overweight and diabetic children.

Your challenge is to take control of this vast federal machinery and use it to drive a transition to a new solar-food economy, starting on the farm. Right now, the government actively discourages the farmers it subsidizes from growing healthful, fresh food: Farmers receiving crop subsidies are prohibited from growing "specialty crops" -- farm-bill speak for fruits and vegetables. (This rule was the price exacted by California and Florida produce growers in exchange for going along with subsidies for commodity crops.) Commodity farmers should instead be encouraged to grow as many different crops -- including animals -- as possible. Why? Because the greater the diversity of crops on a farm, the less the need for both fertilizers and pesticides.

The power of cleverly designed polycultures to produce large amounts of food from little more than soil, water and sunlight has been proved, not only by small-scale "alternative" farmers in the United States but also by large rice-and-fish farmers in China and giant-scale operations (up to 15,000 acres) in places like Argentina. There, in a geography roughly comparable to that of the American farm belt, farmers have traditionally employed an ingenious eight-year rotation of perennial pasture and annual crops: After five years grazing cattle on pasture (and producing the world's best beef), farmers can then grow three years of grain without applying any fossil-fuel fertilizer. Or, for that matter, many pesticides: The weeds that afflict the pasture can't survive the years of tillage, and the weeds of row crops don't survive the years of grazing, making herbicides all but unnecessary. There is no reason -- save current policy and custom -- that American farmers couldn't grow both high-quality grain and grass-fed beef under such a regime through much of the Midwest. (It should be noted that today's sky-high grain prices are causing many Argentine farmers to abandon their rotation to grow grain and soybeans exclusively, an environmental disaster in the making.)

Federal policies could do much to encourage this sort of diversified sun farming. Begin with the subsidies: Payment levels should reflect the number of different crops farmers grow or the number of days of the year their fields are green -- that is, taking advantage of photosynthesis, whether to grow food, replenish the soil or control erosion. If Midwestern farmers simply planted a cover crop after the fall harvest, they would significantly reduce their need for fertilizer, while cutting down on soil erosion. Why don't farmers do this routinely? Because in recent years fossil-fuel-based fertility has been much cheaper and easier to use than sun-based fertility.

In addition to rewarding farmers for planting cover crops, we should make it easier for them to apply compost to their fields -- a practice that improves not only the fertility of the soil but also its ability to hold water and therefore withstand drought. (There is mounting evidence that it also boosts the nutritional quality of the food grown in it.) The USDA estimates that Americans throw out 14 percent of the food they buy; much more is wasted by retailers, wholesalers and institutions. A program to make municipal composting of food and yard waste mandatory and then distributing the compost free to area farmers would shrink America's garbage heap, cut the need for irrigation and fossil-fuel fertilizers in agriculture and improve the nutritional quality of the American diet.

Right now, most of the conservation programs run by the USDA are designed on the zero-sum principle: Land is either locked up in "conservation," or it is farmed intensively. This either-or approach reflects an outdated belief that modern farming and ranching are inherently destructive, so that the best thing for the environment is to leave land untouched. But we now know how to grow crops and graze animals in systems that will support biodiversity, soil health, clean water and carbon sequestration. The Conservation Stewardship Program, championed by Sen. Tom Harkin and included in the 2008 Farm Bill, takes an important step toward rewarding these kinds of practices, but we need to move this approach from the periphery of our farm policy to the very center. Longer term, the government should back ambitious research now under way (at the Land Institute in Kansas and a handful of other places) to "perennialize" commodity agriculture -- to breed varieties of wheat, rice and other staple grains that can be grown like prairie grasses -- without having to till the soil every year. These perennial grains hold the promise of slashing the fossil fuel now needed to fertilize and till the soil, while protecting farmland from erosion and sequestering significant amounts of carbon.

But that is probably a 50-year project. For today's agriculture to wean itself from fossil fuel and make optimal use of sunlight, crop plants and animals must once again be married on the farm -- as in Wendell Berry's elegant "solution." Sunlight nourishes the grasses and grains, the plants nourish the animals, the animals then nourish the soil, which in turn nourishes the next season's grasses and grains. Animals on pasture can also harvest their own feed and dispose of their own waste -- all without our help or fossil fuel.

If this system is so sensible, you might ask, why did it succumb to Confined Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs? In fact there is nothing inherently efficient or economical about raising vast cities of animals in confinement. Three struts, each put into place by federal policy, support the modern CAFO, and the most important of these -- the ability to buy grain for less than it costs to grow it -- has just been kicked away. The second strut is FDA approval for the routine use of antibiotics in feed, without which the animals in these places could not survive their crowded, filthy and miserable existence. And the third is that the government does not require CAFOs to treat their wastes as it would require human cities of comparable size to do. The FDA should ban the routine use of antibiotics in livestock feed on public health grounds, now that we have evidence that the practice is leading to the evolution of drug-resistant bacterial diseases and to outbreaks of E. coli and salmonella poisoning. CAFOs should also be regulated like the factories they are and required to clean up their waste like any other industry or municipality.

It will be argued that moving animals off feedlots and back onto farms will raise the price of meat. It probably will -- as it should. You will need to make the case that paying the real cost of meat, and therefore eating less of it, is a good thing for our health, for the environment, for our dwindling reserves of fresh water and for the welfare of the animals. Meat and milk production represent the food industry's greatest burden on the environment; a recent U.N. study estimated that the world's livestock alone account for 18 percent of all greenhouse gases, more than all forms of transportation combined. (According to one study, a pound of feedlot beef also takes 5,000 gallons of water to produce.) And while animals living on farms will still emit their share of greenhouse gases, grazing them on grass and returning their waste to the soil will substantially offset their carbon hoof prints, as will getting ruminant animals off grain. A bushel of grain takes approximately a half gallon of oil to produce; grass can be grown with little more than sunshine.

It will be argued that sun-food agriculture will generally yield less food than fossil-fuel agriculture. This is debatable. The key question you must be prepared to answer is simply this: Can the sort of sustainable agriculture you're proposing feed the world?

There are a couple of ways to answer this question. The simplest and most honest answer is that we don't know, because we haven't tried. But in the same way we now need to learn how to run an industrial economy without cheap fossil fuel, we have no choice but to find out whether sustainable agriculture can produce enough food. The fact is, during the past century, our agricultural research has been directed toward the goal of maximizing production with the help of fossil fuel. There is no reason to think that bringing the same sort of resources to the development of more complex, sun-based agricultural systems wouldn't produce comparable yields. Today's organic farmers, operating for the most part without benefit of public investment in research, routinely achieve 80 to 100 percent of conventional yields in grain and, in drought years, frequently exceed conventional yields. (This is because organic soils better retain moisture.) Assuming no further improvement, could the world -- with a population expected to peak at 10 billion -- survive on these yields?

First, bear in mind that the average yield of world agriculture today is substantially lower than that of modern sustainable farming. According to a recent University of Michigan study, merely bringing international yields up to today's organic levels could increase the world's food supply by 50 percent.

The second point to bear in mind is that yield isn't everything -- and growing high-yield commodities is not quite the same thing as growing food. Much of what we're growing today is not directly eaten as food but processed into low-quality calories of fat and sugar. As the world epidemic of diet-related chronic disease has demonstrated, the sheer quantity of calories that a food system produces improves health only up to a point, but after that, quality and diversity are probably more important. We can expect that a food system that produces somewhat less food but of a higher quality will produce healthier populations.

The final point to consider is that 40 percent of the world's grain output today is fed to animals; 11 percent of the world's corn and soybean crop is fed to cars and trucks, in the form of biofuels. Provided the developed world can cut its consumption of grain-based animal protein and ethanol, there should be plenty of food for everyone -- however we choose to grow it.

In fact, well-designed polyculture systems, incorporating not just grains but vegetables and animals, can produce more food per acre than conventional monocultures, and food of a much higher nutritional value. But this kind of farming is complicated and needs many more hands on the land to make it work. Farming without fossil fuels -- performing complex rotations of plants and animals and managing pests without petrochemicals -- is labor-intensive and takes more skill than merely "driving and spraying," which is how corn-belt farmers describe what they do for a living.

To grow sufficient amounts of food using sunlight will require more people growing food -- millions more. This suggests that sustainable agriculture will be easier to implement in the developing world, where large rural populations remain, than in the West, where they don't. But what about here in America, where we have only about two million farmers left to feed a population of 300 million? And where farmland is being lost to development at the rate of 2,880 acres a day? Post-oil agriculture will need a lot more people engaged in food production -- as farmers and probably also as gardeners.

The sun-food agenda must include programs to train a new generation of farmers and then help put them on the land. The average American farmer today is 55 years old; we shouldn't expect these farmers to embrace the sort of complex ecological approach to agriculture that is called for. Our focus should be on teaching ecological farming systems to students entering land-grant colleges today. For decades now, it has been federal policy to shrink the number of farmers in America by promoting capital-intensive monoculture and consolidation. As a society, we devalued farming as an occupation and encouraged the best students to leave the farm for "better" jobs in the city. We emptied America's rural counties in order to supply workers to urban factories. To put it bluntly, we now need to reverse course. We need more highly skilled small farmers in more places all across America -- not as a matter of nostalgia for the agrarian past but as a matter of national security. For nations that lose the ability to substantially feed themselves will find themselves as gravely compromised in their international dealings as nations that depend on foreign sources of oil presently do. But while there are alternatives to oil, there are no alternatives to food.

National security also argues for preserving every acre of farmland we can and then making it available to new farmers. We simply will not be able to depend on distant sources of food, and therefore need to preserve every acre of good farmland within a day's drive of our cities. In the same way that when we came to recognize the supreme ecological value of wetlands we erected high bars to their development, we need to recognize the value of farmland to our national security and require real-estate developers to do "food-system impact statements" before development begins. We should also create tax and zoning incentives for developers to incorporate farmland (as they now do "open space") in their subdivision plans; all those subdivisions now ringing golf courses could someday have diversified farms at their center.

The revival of farming in America, which of course draws on the abiding cultural power of our agrarian heritage, will pay many political and economic dividends. It will lead to robust economic renewal in the countryside. And it will generate tens of millions of new "green jobs," which is precisely how we need to begin thinking of skilled solar farming: as a vital sector of the 21st century post-fossil-fuel economy.

II. Reregionalizing the Food System

For your sun-food agenda to succeed, it will have to do a lot more than alter what happens on the farm. The government could help seed a thousand new polyculture farmers in every county in Iowa, but they would promptly fail if the grain elevator remained the only buyer in town and corn and beans were the only crops it would take. Resolarizing the food system means building the infrastructure for a regional food economy -- one that can support diversified farming and, by shortening the food chain, reduce the amount of fossil fuel in the American diet.

A decentralized food system offers a great many other benefits as well. Food eaten closer to where it is grown will be fresher and require less processing, making it more nutritious. Whatever may be lost in efficiency by localizing food production is gained in resilience: regional food systems can better withstand all kinds of shocks. When a single factory is grinding 20 million hamburger patties in a week or washing 25 million servings of salad, a single terrorist armed with a canister of toxins can, at a stroke, poison millions. Such a system is equally susceptible to accidental contamination: The bigger and more global the trade in food, the more vulnerable the system is to catastrophe. The best way to protect our food system against such threats is obvious: Decentralize it.

Today in America there is soaring demand for local and regional food; farmers markets, of which the USDA estimates there are now 4,700, have become one of the fastest-growing segments of the food market. Community-supported agriculture is booming as well: There are now nearly 1,500 community-supported farms, to which consumers pay an annual fee in exchange for a weekly box of produce through the season. The local-food movement will continue to grow with no help from the government, especially as high fuel prices make distant and out-of-season food, as well as feedlot meat, more expensive. Yet there are several steps the government can take to nurture this market and make local foods more affordable. Here are a few:

Four-Season Farmers Markets. Provide grants to towns and cities to build year-round indoor farmers markets, on the model of Pike Place in Seattle or the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia. To supply these markets, the USDA should make grants to rebuild local distribution networks in order to minimize the amount of energy used to move produce within local food sheds.

Agricultural Enterprise Zones. Today the revival of local food economies is being hobbled by a tangle of regulations originally designed to check abuses by the very largest food producers. Farmers should be able to smoke a ham and sell it to their neighbors without making a huge investment in federally approved facilities. Food-safety regulations must be made sensitive to scale and marketplace so that a small producer selling direct off the farm or at a farmers market is not regulated as onerously as a multinational food manufacturer. This is not because local food won't ever have food-safety problems -- it will -- only that its problems will be less catastrophic and easier to manage because local food is inherently more traceable and accountable.

Local Meat Inspection Corps. Perhaps the single greatest impediment to the return of livestock to the land and the revival of local, grass-based meat production is the disappearance of regional slaughter facilities. The big meat processors have been buying up local abattoirs only to close them down as they consolidate, and the USDA does little to support the ones that remain. From the department's perspective, it is a better use of shrinking resources to dispatch its inspectors to a plant slaughtering 400 head an hour than to a regional abattoir slaughtering a dozen. The USDA should establish a local meat inspectors corps to serve these processors. Expanding on its successful pilot program on Lopez Island in Puget Sound, the USDA should also introduce a fleet of mobile abattoirs that would go from farm to farm, processing animals humanely and inexpensively. Nothing would do more to make regional, grass-fed meat fully competitive in the market with feedlot meat.

Establish a Strategic Grain Reserve. In the same way the shift to alternative energy depends on keeping oil prices relatively stable, the sun-food agenda -- as well as the food security of billions of people around the world -- will benefit from government action to prevent huge swings in commodity prices. A strategic grain reserve, modeled on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, would help achieve this objective and at the same time provide some cushion for world food stocks, which today stand at perilously low levels. Governments should buy and store grain when it is cheap and sell when it is dear, thereby moderating price swings in both directions and discouraging speculation.

Regionalize Federal Food Procurement. In the same way that federal procurement is often used to advance important social goals (like promoting minority-owned businesses), we should require that some minimum percentage of government food purchases -- whether for school lunch programs, military bases or federal prisons -- go to producers located within 100 miles of the institutions buying the food. We should create incentives for hospitals and universities receiving federal funds to buy fresh local produce. To channel even a small portion of institutional food purchasing to local food would vastly expand regional agriculture and improve the diet of the millions of people these institutions feed.

Create a Federal Definition of "Food." It makes no sense for government food-assistance dollars, intended to improve the nutritional health of at-risk Americans, to support the consumption of products we know to be unhealthful. Yes, some people will object that for the government to specify what food stamps can and cannot buy smacks of paternalism. Yet we already prohibit the purchase of tobacco and alcohol with food stamps. So why not prohibit something like soda, which is arguably less nutritious than red wine? Because it is, nominally, a food, albeit a "junk food." We need to stop flattering nutritionally worthless foodlike substances by calling them "junk food" -- and instead make clear that such products are not in fact food of any kind. Defining what constitutes real food worthy of federal support will no doubt be controversial (you'll recall Ronald Reagan's ketchup imbroglio), but defining food upward may be more politically palatable than defining it down, as Reagan sought to do. One approach would be to rule that, in order to be regarded as a food by the government, an edible substance must contain a certain minimum ratio of micronutrients per calorie of energy. At a stroke, such a definition would improve the quality of school lunches and discourage sales of unhealthful products, since typically only "food" is exempt from local sales tax.

A few other ideas: Food-stamp debit cards should double in value whenever they are swiped at farmers markets -- all of which, by the way, need to be equipped with the Electronic Benefit Transfer card readers that supermarkets already have. We should expand the WIC program that gives farmers market vouchers to low-income women with children; such programs help attract farmers markets to urban neighborhoods where access to fresh produce is often nonexistent. (We should also offer tax incentives to grocery chains willing to build supermarkets in underserved neighborhoods.) Federal food assistance for the elderly should build on a successful program pioneered by the state of Maine that buys low-income seniors a membership in a community-supported farm. All these initiatives have the virtue of advancing two objectives at once: supporting the health of at-risk Americans and the revival of local food economies.

III. Rebuilding America's Food Culture

In the end, shifting the American diet from a foundation of imported fossil fuel to local sunshine will require changes in our daily lives, which by now are deeply implicated in the economy and culture of fast, cheap and easy food. Making available more healthful and more sustainable food does not guarantee it will be eaten, much less appreciated or enjoyed. We need to use all the tools at our disposal -- not just federal policy and public education but the president's bully pulpit and the example of the first family's own dinner table -- to promote a new culture of food that can undergird your sun-food agenda.

Changing the food culture must begin with our children, and it must begin in the schools. Nearly a half-century ago, President John F. Kennedy announced a national initiative to improve the physical fitness of American children. He did it by elevating the importance of physical education, pressing states to make it a requirement in public schools. We need to bring the same commitment to "edible education" -- Alice Waters' phrase -- by making lunch, in all its dimensions, a mandatory part of the curriculum. On the premise that eating well is a critically important life skill, we need to teach all primary school students the basics of growing and cooking food and then enjoying it at shared meals.

To change our children's food culture, we'll need to plant gardens in every primary school, build fully equipped kitchens, train a new generation of lunchroom ladies (and gentlemen) who can once again cook and teach cooking to children. We should introduce a school lunch corps program that forgives federal student loans to culinary-school graduates in exchange for two years of service in the public school lunch program. And we should immediately increase school lunch spending per pupil by $1 a day -- the minimum amount that food service experts believe it will take to underwrite a shift from fast food in the cafeteria to real food freshly prepared.

But it is not only our children who stand to benefit from public education about food. Today most federal messages about food, from nutrition labeling to the food pyramid, are negotiated with the food industry. The surgeon general should take over from the Department of Agriculture the job of communicating with Americans about their diet. That way we might begin to construct a less equivocal and more effective public health message about nutrition. Indeed, there is no reason that public health campaigns about the dangers of obesity and Type 2 diabetes shouldn't be as tough and as effective as public health campaigns about the dangers of smoking. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 1 in 3 American children born in 2000 will develop Type 2 diabetes. The public needs to know and see precisely what that sentence means: blindness; amputation; early death -- all of which can be avoided by a change in diet and lifestyle. A public health crisis of this magnitude calls for a blunt public health message, even at the expense of offending the food industry. Judging by the success of recent anti-smoking campaigns, the savings to the health care system could be substantial.

There are other kinds of information about food that the government can supply or demand. In general we should push for as much transparency in the food system as possible -- the other sense in which "sunlight" should be the watchword of our agenda. The FDA should require that every packaged-food product include a second calorie count, indicating how many calories of fossil fuel went into its production. Oil is one of the most important ingredients in our food, and people ought to know just how much of it they're eating. The government should also throw its support behind putting a second bar code on all food products that, when scanned either in the store or at home (or with a cell phone), brings up on a screen the whole story and pictures of how that product was produced: in the case of crops, images of the farm and lists of agrochemicals used in its production; in the case of meat and dairy, descriptions of the animals' diet and drug regimen, as well as live video feeds of the CAFO where they live and, yes, the slaughterhouse where they die. The very length and complexity of the modern food chain breeds a culture of ignorance and indifference among eaters. Shortening the food chain is one way to create more conscious consumers, but deploying technology to pierce the veil is another.

Finally, there is the power of the example you set in the White House. If what's needed is a change of culture in America's thinking about food, then how America's first household organizes its eating will set the national tone, focusing the light of public attention on the issue and communicating a simple set of values that can guide Americans toward sun-based foods and away from eating oil.

The choice of White House chef is always closely watched, and you would be wise to appoint a figure who is identified with the food movement and committed to cooking simply from fresh local ingredients. Besides feeding you and your family exceptionally well, such a chef would demonstrate how it is possible even in Washington to eat locally for much of the year, and that good food needn't be fussy or complicated but does depend on good farming. You should make a point of the fact that every night you're in town, you join your family for dinner in the Executive Residence -- at a table. (Surely you remember the Reagans' TV trays.) And you should also let it be known that the White House observes one meatless day a week -- a step that, if all Americans followed suit, would be the equivalent, in carbon saved, of taking 20 million midsize sedans off the road for a year. Let the White House chef post daily menus on the Web, listing the farmers who supplied the food, as well as recipes.

Since enhancing the prestige of farming as an occupation is critical to developing the sun-based regional agriculture we need, the White House should appoint, in addition to a White House chef, a White House farmer. This new post would be charged with implementing what could turn out to be your most symbolically resonant step in building a new American food culture. And that is this: Tear out five prime south-facing acres of the White House lawn and plant in their place an organic fruit and vegetable garden.

When Eleanor Roosevelt did something similar in 1943, she helped start a Victory Garden movement that ended up making a substantial contribution to feeding the nation in wartime. (Less well known is the fact that Roosevelt planted this garden over the objections of the USDA, which feared home gardening would hurt the American food industry.) By the end of the war, more than 20 million home gardens were supplying 40 percent of the produce consumed in America. The president should throw his support behind a new Victory Garden movement, this one seeking "victory" over three critical challenges we face today: high food prices, poor diets and a sedentary population. Eating from this, the shortest food chain of all, offers anyone with a patch of land a way to reduce their fossil-fuel consumption and help fight climate change. (We should offer grants to cities to build allotment gardens for people without access to land.) Just as important, Victory Gardens offer a way to enlist Americans, in body as well as mind, in the work of feeding themselves and changing the food system -- something more ennobling, surely, than merely asking them to shop a little differently.

I don't need to tell you that ripping out even a section of the White House lawn will be controversial: Americans love their lawns, and the South Lawn is one of the most beautiful in the country. But imagine all the energy, water and petrochemicals it takes to make it that way. (Even for the purposes of this memo, the White House would not disclose its lawn-care regimen.) Yet as deeply as Americans feel about their lawns, the agrarian ideal runs deeper still, and making this particular plot of American land productive, especially if the First Family gets out there and pulls weeds now and again, will provide an image even more stirring than that of a pretty lawn: the image of stewardship of the land, of self-reliance and of making the most of local sunlight to feed one's family and community. The fact that surplus produce from the South Lawn Victory Garden (and there will be literally tons of it) will be offered to regional food banks will make its own eloquent statement.

You're probably thinking that growing and eating organic food in the White House carries a certain political risk. It is true you might want to plant iceberg lettuce rather than arugula, at least to start. (Or simply call arugula by its proper American name, as generations of Midwesterners have done: "rocket.") But it should not be difficult to deflect the charge of elitism sometimes leveled at the sustainable-food movement. Reforming the food system is not inherently a Right or Left issue: For every Whole Foods shopper with roots in the counterculture, you can find a family of evangelicals intent on taking control of its family dinner and diet back from the fast-food industry -- the culinary equivalent of home schooling. You should support hunting as a particularly sustainable way to eat meat -- meat grown without any fossil fuels whatsoever. There is also a strong libertarian component to the sun-food agenda, which seeks to free small producers from the burden of government regulation in order to stoke rural innovation. And what is a higher "family value," after all, than making time to sit down every night to a shared meal?

Our agenda puts the interests of America's farmers, families and communities ahead of the fast food industry's. For that industry and its apologists to imply that it is somehow more "populist" or egalitarian to hand our food dollars to Burger King or General Mills than to support a struggling local farmer is absurd. Yes, sun food costs more, but the reasons why it does only undercut the charge of elitism: Cheap food is only cheap because of government handouts and regulatory indulgence (both of which we will end), not to mention the exploitation of workers, animals and the environment on which its putative "economies" depend. Cheap food is food dishonestly priced -- it is in fact unconscionably expensive.

Your sun-food agenda promises to win support across the aisle. It builds on America's agrarian past but turns it toward a more sustainable, sophisticated future. It honors the work of American farmers and enlists them in three of the 21st century's most urgent errands: to move into the post-oil era, to improve the health of the American people and to mitigate climate change. Indeed, it enlists all of us in this great cause by turning food consumers into part-time producers, reconnecting the American people with the American land and demonstrating that we need not choose between the welfare of our families and the health of the environment -- that using less crude oil and using more sunlight will redound to the benefit of both.