Sewage sludge used to be dumped into the ocean, but that wasn’t environmentally responsible, so it was marketed as “fertilizer” and dumped on farmland.

There’s nothing wrong with “humanure” if properly composted. (Although it isn’t allowed in organic and we’re okay with that!)

The thing that makes sewage sludge so nasty isn’t the human waste, it’s the polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

This class of highly toxic man-made fluorinated chemicals are used in a variety of products, including waterproof fabric, stain-resistant carpets, nonstick pans, flame retardant furniture, take-out containers, cosmetics and firefighting foam.

PFAS lasts forever, accumulating in the environment, and it kills. There is scientific evidence that it causes cancer, kidney disease, birth defects, and liver damage, while beating up the immune system.

The Biden Administration has started to regulate PFAS, putting six PFAS formulations on its list of substances regulated in drinking water and two under its Superfund authority, to shift the costs of cleanup from taxpayers to polluters.

That’s great, but there are an estimated 12,000 PFAS formulations and an estimated 30,000 PFAS polluters releasing this “devil’s piss” into the environment via wastewater discharged into surface waters and municipal sewage treatment facilities.

What we need is to ban PFAS, to get it out of our water, out of consumer products, out of the military, out of firefighting, and out of food and farming!

Read more: Ban PFAS, The Toxic Forever Chemicals Contaminating Our Water, Food & Farmland!

Take Action: Tell Your State Legislators to Ban PFAS!

Take Action: Tell Congress to Ban PFAS!

From OCA Co-founder and National Director, Rose Welch:

This week is the one year anniversary of Ronnie’s death.

We are marking this day by sending a bit of his life story to the network of people who include those who came to know him personally, and those who, through his life’s work, supported him, loved him and followed his efforts over the last twenty-six years as International Director of Organic Consumers Association, authoring articles, books, editing the OCA newsletter and before that BioDemocracy News.

Read Rose’s heartfelt tribute

Watch this video of Ronnie in action

And check out this page to learn about Ronnie’s vision

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola:

“STORY AT-A-GLANCE

* Fermented foods like sauerkraut and kimchi “offer an affordable dietary intervention strategy” for better mental health

* Fermented foods are rich in phytochemicals and microbial metabolites that include neurotransmitters and neuromodulators

* These compounds stimulate pathways of the microbiota-gut-brain axis, including those of the immune system and neuroendocrine, enteric nervous and circulatory systems

* Fermented foods may block dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, the system responsible for the management of stress, which has also been linked to multiple neuropsychiatric disorders

* A meta-analysis of cohort studies found a significant association between consuming fermented dairy foods, including cheese and yogurt, and a decreased risk of depression”

Learn more: Could Eating More Fermented Foods Help Improve Mental Health?

By Sasa Woodruff, NPR News

“The Purple Galaxy Tomato splashed across the cover of this season’s Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalog: a closeup of a blackish-purple tomato speckled with tiny pink dots. Next to it, sits a sliced open fruit, revealing deep fuchsia seeds and flesh.

‘This beauty is believed to be the first — and the purplest — non-GMO purple tomato in the universe!’ read the catalog copy.

Only problem? The seeds actually may have been a GMO variety, the recently released Purple Tomato, created using genes from a snapdragon flower by Norfolk Healthy Produce.

The mix-up has caused consternation for the heirloom seed company that prides itself on offering rare and organic varieties and takes a firm stance against GMO crops. And it’s triggered debate about biodiversity and what can happen with GMO seeds when they begin to spread.”



Learn more about why using recombinant DNA technology has people concerned

Ban New GMO Frankenfoods

by Katherine Sacks, Footprint

“When it comes to buying a chocolate bar, things can get complicated. While you might be drawn to your favorite childhood treat, like a Kit Kat or Take 5 bar, you could change your mind when you find out more about how the chocolate was made. Chocolate production, especially mass-produced chocolate from the most prominent brands, has some unsavory practices, including environmental and human rights problems. There are some chocolate facts to take into consideration when choosing between all those bars in the candy aisle.

As Lela Nargi has reported for FoodPrint, cocoa is among a handful of commodity crops, including coffee, sugarcane and palm oil, that are “grown in the global south by impoverished smallholder farmers with no power in the supply chain. The purchase of these crops by multinational food and beverage corporations — to make your chocolate bars, cookies and more — supports lack of living wages, child/forced/forced child labor, sexual assault, and rampant deforestation.”

Read about what labels should we should be looking of and more

Alliance for Natural Health

“Recently, we reported that Sen. Durbin is planning on introducing his anti-supplement bill sometime in 2024. This bill would institute “mandatory product listing” (MPL) for supplements. Creating a registry of the supplement industry may sound harmless, but for the reasons we’ve outlined in the past, this policy is a real threat to your supplement access. To help show why, we need only look to our neighbors in the north: Canada. The evolution of the Canadian system shows how additional supplement regulations sought by Sen. Durbin and the FDA lead us down a path where consumers have ever fewer choices because so many products—especially the most efficacious—will be eliminated.

In the US, supplements are regulated as food; in Canada, they are regulated under the Natural Health Products Regulations as a distinct ‘third’ category, between foods and drugs, requiring pre-market approval. To sell a supplement in Canada, companies must first apply for and obtain a Natural Product Number (NPN) from Health Canada (the equivalent of the FDA). To get an NPN, a company must provide extensive information regarding the safety and efficacy of the natural health product.”

Read more and Write to Congress opposing MPL for supplements

Organic regenerative agriculture takes a holistic approach that embraces Mother Nature—working with as opposed to against nature—to grow healthy, nutritious food while at the same time preserving earth’s natural ecosystems.

When done properly, organic regenerative farming is the way of the future. It’s a solution to some of the world’s greatest and most complex problems including climate change, food insecurity and the loss of biodiversity. It has the potential to both save us from climate catastrophe, and produce enough food to feed the world in a way that allows humans to live in harmony with nature.

We need to integrate this green justice and these regenerative solutions messages with the specific issues and concerns that are most important to grassroots constituencies, and then lay out, in everyday language, a strategy that makes people understand that we can actually solve the problems they care about the most, while also solving a host of other pressing problems at the same time. Only by starting from where people are at, and then connecting the dots, can we capture the attention and imagination of a critical mass of the global grassroots and get them to start thinking about how they can participate in our new Movement and new economy.

Please consider a donation, with your support we can grow this vital movement! 

Make a tax-deductible donation to Organic Consumers Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit

Make a tax-deductible donation to Regeneration International, our international sister organization

Liza Featherstone, TNR:

“As climate change exacerbates water shortages, water profiteering is making the problem even worse. The barbaric capitalist insistence on treating water as a commodity incentivizes scarcity and hoarding, as well as imposes ever more extreme levels of thirst upon the world’s poor.

Responding to the threat of profiteers exploiting a water shortage in the western United States, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Ro Khanna recently introduced a bill that would ban trading water as a commodity. Speaking to the press last week, Warren rejected the premise that the water crisis should be a source of profit for ‘the rich and powerful.’ Instead, she said, the bill would ‘protect water from Wall Street speculation and ensure our most essential resources isn’t auctioned off to the highest bidder.’”


Read more ethical case against profiting from a water shortage: We Don’t Charge People for Air. We Shouldn’t Charge for Water, Either.

By Roxanne Fequiere, Tudum by Netflix

“In recent years, doctors and scientists have studied the gut with renewed interest. Research has revealed that the digestive system is more than just a processing center for the food we eat, and that it has a much bigger effect on our overall health than previously thought. Issues as varied as stubborn weight gain and Parkinson’s disease can be linked to the gut, which means that understanding our digestive system — and, by extension, how it thrives or suffers based on what we eat — is crucial. In a new documentary, Hack Your Health: The Secrets of Your Gut, German scientist Giulia Enders partners with colleagues to explain how the gut works — and how to make it work for you.

How does the gut work?

For those who need a quick biology refresher: The food we eat travels from the esophagus to the stomach before moving onto the small intestine and then the large intestine. Whatever is left is waste, and it’s expelled as poop. Approximately 70% of our immune system lives in our gut, and those microscopic organisms communicate with our other organs. “Our gut affects our whole body,” neuroscientist John Cryan says in the doc. “The gut really is the second brain.” Many conditions once thought to be determined by one’s genetics may actually be attributable to one’s microbiome.”

Read more: In the Search for Wellness, Hack Your Health Goes Straight to the Gut

Watch Hack Your Health: The Secrets of Your Gut on Netflix

By Joanna Whitehead, iNews:


“It may be grey outside your window right now, but spring has officially sprung and brighter, lighter days will soon be here. While a cerulean sky and dappled sunlight may be on most Brits’ wish list, a cloudy day is no deterrent to engaging with and enjoying nature fortunately – and the benefits of doing so are well documented. Lower blood pressure, stress levels and anxiety, a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, and improved attention and sleep are just some of the health perks from spending time in green and blue spaces.

We’ve spoken to the experts to get their tips for embracing what nature has to offer this spring. Almost all of their suggestions are free, meaning you don’t have to splash out to reap the rewards. From planting wildflowers to tracking bumblebees, watching the sunrise, to spotting swifts, there’s certain to be something here that reminds you of Mother Nature’s magic.”

From swimming wildly to getting acquainted with grass, learn more

Braelei Hardt, NFW Blog:

“Many envision the ‘perfect’ American lawn as a lush, uniform green carpet that covers their outdoor space. But beneath this verdant facade lies a complex social history and significant environmental dilemma. The lawns that stretch across the United States, covering an astonishing 40 million acres—an area as expansive as Colorado—embody a tradition deeply rooted in cultural status but fraught with ecological consequences. These perfectly manicured landscapes, while picturesque, now consume around 9 billion gallons of water daily, introduce a myriad of toxins into our ecosystems, and offer scant refuge for the local wildlife that once thrived in these spaces.

Why then, do we even have lawns? This blog navigates the origins of lawn culture, from its aristocratic beginnings in Europe to its emblematic—and at time insidious—role in American suburbia. As we peel back the layers of tradition and confront the unsettling reasons our culture cherishes open green space to begin with, we invite you to reassess the allure of a lawn—to consider instead landscaping informed by a bright future, rather than a dark history.”

Read about Lawns as a Legacy of Luxury

Read: No Mow May: A Starting Point, Not the Finish Line

Yarrow: The Herb That Can Save the Day

Toxic Timeline: A Brief History of PFAS

Aspartame Classified as ‘Possibly Carcinogenic’

Egg Labels, Egg-Splained: From Cage-Free to Free-Range, How to Eat Ethically and Economically

GMO’s, Chemicals, And The Food System And How They Directly Affect Your Health

Annuals, Perennials, and Biennials: How Are They Different?

Plastic Pollution Talks Move Closer to World-First Pact

Vitamin D Reduces Menstrual Pain and Medication Use

New GM Plants: EFSA Overlooked Most Powerful and Risky Applications

Noise From Traffic Stunts Growth of Baby Birds, Study Finds

More Than One-Third of People in the US Exposed to Harmful Air Pollution – Report

Victory! More Transparent Food Labels

2024 Goldman Prize Winner Murrawah Johnson: First Nations Must Be at the Forefront of Creating Change

WHO Update: Medical Freedom Still in Peril

56 Companies Responsible for Half of Global Plastic Pollution That Researchers Could Trace